The Budget

Himself just made me giggle. We were watching the lunchtime news and when Hunt ‘I will only lower taxes when it is responsible to do so’ came on, Himself said “he only needs a cowboy hat to look like Woody from the Toy Story!”. Woody he is for me now.
😁

Either a tax cut or lowering the tax threshold would be good for me.

Vote Reform UK.

It's difficult to see how any former Tory voter could vote Tory again; we've been so utterly betrayed.

Brexit? Pah!

Ilovecheese

Does nobody feel lucky that they receive enough money that they don't have to jump through the hoops of trying to claim benefits?
A good few bitter people on the site today.

I don’t think it’s a case of “bitter people”. More wanting a fair and equitable system. It’s ridiculous that those on no or lower incomes can sometimes end up being better off than their peers earning just slightly above the threshold.

I do thank my lucky stars that I don’t have to live on benefits, most especially as I worked in this sector for the last 14 years of my professional life. However, it’s a broken system. I’m not someone who decries those living on benefits nor thinks they shouldn’t have their nails done etc, but I do have empathy for those earning just above the thresholds for additional help who end up financially worse off.

I’d love to see a country where all those capable of working are in work, earning a fair income to provide them with all they need and that those unable to work are looked after properly. A country where everyone has a home and where we don’t need food banks.

I’d just like see everyone paying their fair share of taxes and loopholes tightened.

I’m not bitter, I’m angry that some people work hard their entire lives and still end up struggling.

Ilovecheese

Does nobody feel lucky that they receive enough money that they don't have to jump through the hoops of trying to claim benefits?
A good few bitter people on the site today.

I think the question is 'Would gaining a few pounds from the budget be enough to swing their vote, in view of all the other problems we face daily which the tories seem to have no intention of doing anything about?'

Beckett

Remind who left a note saying the money was all gone!!!

Goodness Beckett, keep up!
www.theguardian.com/global/2010/may/17/liam-byrne-letter-wider-tradition

Does nobody feel lucky that they receive enough money that they don't have to jump through the hoops of trying to claim benefits?
A good few bitter people on the site today.

Beckett

Remind who left a note saying the money was all gone!!!

Remind me who left a note saying

“Sorry old cock for the absolute state I’ve left you”

I assume that will be the note left by Hunt if the Tories get kicked out this time.

LizzieDrip

I agree with you AlwaysSmiling. My husband and I both paid into private pensions (quite a lot per month) and now we’re retired (with state pension) we get just above the threshold for claiming any financial help, even though all our outgoings have increased dramatically. Like you, I often think I wish we’d just spent that money each month instead of paying into pensions.

I’m in the same boat. Full state pension, survivors pension from my late DH, and a civil service pension.

Over the threshold for any means tested help, and paying more tax all the time.

My social housing rent is going up to £900 per month in April, and I have to pay it all.

Interest rates being higher are helping a bit with savings, but that’s it.

Raising the tax threshold would help.

Agree M0nica stop until we know the FACTS!

Beckett

Remind who left a note saying the money was all gone!!!

Yes! However it turned out that this is a fairly long term standing joke! Other chancellors from both parties have left similar notes.

Statistically across their terms, percentages are fairly similar between both parties for the last 30 or so years. Plenty of evidence from a number of sites to back this up!

Remind who left a note saying the money was all gone!!!

I agree with you AlwaysSmiling. My husband and I both paid into private pensions (quite a lot per month) and now we’re retired (with state pension) we get just above the threshold for claiming any financial help, even though all our outgoings have increased dramatically. Like you, I often think I wish we’d just spent that money each month instead of paying into pensions.

What is the point of discussing the budget only a few days before its presentation? Wait a day or two and you will know what it is and then you can really get stuck in.

I agree 100% with previous posters about the tax threshold. It needs to come right down and will lose the Tories their traditional pensioner vote untill some progress is made.

It is possible to get around this but involves some manipulation and creative accounting which I am not about to explain on a public forum.

Its a disgrace that people who never saved a penny should be better off than those who made (often modest) provision through an occulational pension.

Freya5

Cossy

AlwaysSmiling

All I want is for the tax threshold to raise. Keeping it at it's present level is making pensioners and everyone else pay more tax. It states it will not rise until 2028. Yes we will get a great triple lock pension rise in April but I will now pay tax.
The mobile phone payments, council tax, Internet Service, TV Licence, home insurance, water rates, energy bills etc. have all risen so it is a case of they give it to us with one hand and take it back with the other.

If my late husband and I hadn't saved for a rainy day and had a small private pension, I would have got my full state pension and been able to claim benefits. I pay for Glasses and Dental treatment and they have started making some prescription items that were prescribed by hospital specialists into over the counter medication so now I have to pay for them as well. I have worked it all out and I am just a few pounds above the threshold for benefits so after paying for medication, glasses and dental treatment I am worse off than the people who claim benefits and get everything going.

If I have my time over again I would spend, spend, spend.

Totally agree and there’s always been that awful gap between being eligible to claim financial help and earning just too much but actually ending up worse off than those on lower salaries, which is utter madness!

This is absolutely correct. My granddaughter cannot get help with childcare, because her partner earns just over the threshold, "too much "in the words of the official.
Full time Law student.

Quite ironic that tory supporters, who presumably believe in self reliance and minimal state input, as those are tory dogma, should be annoyed about ineligibility for a state benefit...

Cossy

AlwaysSmiling

All I want is for the tax threshold to raise. Keeping it at it's present level is making pensioners and everyone else pay more tax. It states it will not rise until 2028. Yes we will get a great triple lock pension rise in April but I will now pay tax.
The mobile phone payments, council tax, Internet Service, TV Licence, home insurance, water rates, energy bills etc. have all risen so it is a case of they give it to us with one hand and take it back with the other.

If my late husband and I hadn't saved for a rainy day and had a small private pension, I would have got my full state pension and been able to claim benefits. I pay for Glasses and Dental treatment and they have started making some prescription items that were prescribed by hospital specialists into over the counter medication so now I have to pay for them as well. I have worked it all out and I am just a few pounds above the threshold for benefits so after paying for medication, glasses and dental treatment I am worse off than the people who claim benefits and get everything going.

If I have my time over again I would spend, spend, spend.

Totally agree and there’s always been that awful gap between being eligible to claim financial help and earning just too much but actually ending up worse off than those on lower salaries, which is utter madness!

This is absolutely correct. My granddaughter cannot get help with childcare, because her partner earns just over the threshold, "too much "in the words of the official.
Full time Law student.

AlwaysSmiling

All I want is for the tax threshold to raise. Keeping it at it's present level is making pensioners and everyone else pay more tax. It states it will not rise until 2028. Yes we will get a great triple lock pension rise in April but I will now pay tax.
The mobile phone payments, council tax, Internet Service, TV Licence, home insurance, water rates, energy bills etc. have all risen so it is a case of they give it to us with one hand and take it back with the other.

If my late husband and I hadn't saved for a rainy day and had a small private pension, I would have got my full state pension and been able to claim benefits. I pay for Glasses and Dental treatment and they have started making some prescription items that were prescribed by hospital specialists into over the counter medication so now I have to pay for them as well. I have worked it all out and I am just a few pounds above the threshold for benefits so after paying for medication, glasses and dental treatment I am worse off than the people who claim benefits and get everything going.

If I have my time over again I would spend, spend, spend.

Totally agree and there’s always been that awful gap between being eligible to claim financial help and earning just too much but actually ending up worse off than those on lower salaries, which is utter madness!

We do not need tax cuts as such, we need the freeze removed on the personal allowances and this needs to rise.

We simply cannot afford the cuts we’ve already had to public services, let alone more!

I cannot see anything Hunt does is going to make a tangible difference to any “normal” people.

Whatever happens at both the budget and the GE we need to baton down the hatches and be prepared for some (further) lean years. Tories simply cannot accuse Labour of mismanaging the public purse after this govt!

I didn’t read the article but Rachel Reeves was saying how she learnt from her mum how to balance the housekeeping budget. More Margaret Thatcher “housewife and her purse” coming through then?

All I want is for the tax threshold to raise. Keeping it at it's present level is making pensioners and everyone else pay more tax. It states it will not rise until 2028. Yes we will get a great triple lock pension rise in April but I will now pay tax.
The mobile phone payments, council tax, Internet Service, TV Licence, home insurance, water rates, energy bills etc. have all risen so it is a case of they give it to us with one hand and take it back with the other.

If my late husband and I hadn't saved for a rainy day and had a small private pension, I would have got my full state pension and been able to claim benefits. I pay for Glasses and Dental treatment and they have started making some prescription items that were prescribed by hospital specialists into over the counter medication so now I have to pay for them as well. I have worked it all out and I am just a few pounds above the threshold for benefits so after paying for medication, glasses and dental treatment I am worse off than the people who claim benefits and get everything going.

If I have my time over again I would spend, spend, spend.

Jeremy Hunt was on Laura Kuenssberg's political programme yesterday morning. She grilled him at length on the things he might say in his Spring Budget but he disclosed very little. On the panel were Sir Rocco Forte, the hotelier and Andy Haldane, former Chief Economist at the Bank of England, both men with a good grasp on the economy. After Hunt's interview they were very scathing about what he had said and feel that if a tax cut is announced it will be very small and other measures like removing tourist tax would benefit the economy more. We shall see.

I agree, MaizieD!

Labour will only find it difficult to do much if they persist in dancing to the tune of neoliberal economic commentators (who seem to be more au fait with book keeping than with practical economic practice.

Keynesian economists (totally different from neoliberal economists) have been calling for ages for more state investment to promote growth and attract private investors. It would require some post election boldness from Labour but it's high time we escaped from the economic theory and small state ideology that has held the country in thrall since Thatcher and is the prime cause of the state the UK is in now.

If Labour don't do it we are in big, big trouble.

(Anyone worried about 'the debt' needs to read Simon Wren Lewis's last 3 blog posts. He's a Keynesian, BTW, not MMT)

Detoxifying Government Debt, parts 1,2 & 3.

mainlymacro.blogspot.com/

winterwhite

Looking on the bright, or least gloomy, side - Jeremy Hunt is a silver-tongued smooth operator. If there is a glimmer of good news for tory party members he can put it across, then if the Observer is right we might get a spring election.

If Labour does get in they are going to find it b….y difficult to do much though.