The budget - not quite live

Nick_C

Chip on a shoulder? Whinging?

Was Emily Davison having a whinge when she threw herself in front of Anmer? Maybe she had a chip on her shoulder? Maybe it was the time of the month?

Sorry to trivialise the serious issue of gender equality, but you started it!

BillJones

harz99 wrote: »

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Just about the only non pensioner friendly budget measure is the tobacco duty increase, and with the increases in recent years, many pensioners will have given up smoking anyway, so not much impact.

The ISA allowance increase, and the ability to transfer holdings between cash and other investments is pretty good news for the rest of us, too, especially as we can't put so much into the pension fund as once we could (max holding is now down to £1.25m).

Nick_C

The reduction in Air Passenger Duty on many long haul destinations is more likely to benefit younger people. A family of 4 flying to the Caribbean could save a total of £64. A gap year student flying to Oz will save £27.

Graham_Devon

Nick_C wrote: »

I don't think its whinging to object to being discriminated against on the grounds of gender. You wanted equality, enjoy it. It works both ways.

Positive discrimination I believe they call it.

At least those were the words invented to discriminate against certain groups when equality doesn't quite work in favour of another group.

Always amusing how the most vocal equality supporters are always the first to talk about positive discrimination.....Harriet Harman anyone!?

chewmylegoff

JasonLVC wrote: »

Could have sworn Balls responded last year.


But thanks for the clarification.

I remember saying the same thing last year when Milliband stood up and started talking as I thought balls was supposed to be doing it. I'm pretty sure I even looked it up via google and got the same Wikipedia page!

chewmylegoff

TommyJ1956 wrote: »

There is mention that the amount of lump sum that can be taken has increased from £18,000 to £30,000 ? I am confused , I thought that you could take up to 25% of your pot whatever it is up to 1.5 million. I have just taken £25 k from my SIPP does that mean I can only take another £5 k

At the moment if your total pension pot is £18k or less you can withdraw the whole lot in one go and no pay any tax at all. That limit is being increased from £18k to £30k.

This does not change the fact that you can take 25% of a large pension pot as a tax free lump sum.

michaels

Won't the ending of compulsory annuities make it even harder to fund the ongoing deficit/debt rollover?

Looks like a can-kicking - get more tax in the door short term at the expense of longer term means tested pensioner benefits increasing....

michaels

One thing - nice to have some of the announcements made in the house rather than pre-spun.

chewmylegoff

Pensioner bonds are worthless token gesture. Max of £10k and pay about 1% above market so max benefit of £100. Suppose it reduces the amount of money that govt has to borrow via gilts a bit...

michaels

I like ISAs being more flexible but I still think there should be a much lower tax free allowance say 25k total, available immediately. The extra amount every year available currently means the vast majority of the benefit goes to the richest, highly regressive.