17 Comments

• ben 23rd Mar '11 - 1:29pm

  It’s awful seeing the smugness on Nick Clegg’s and Danny Alexanders faces as they cheer along their Chancellor

• Leviticus18_23 23rd Mar '11 - 2:09pm

  It’s everything you’d expect from the Conservatives.

  If you are in the wealthiest 10% of the population it’s great. If not, you get shafted.

  It’s ‘fair’ and ‘progressive’.

• ben 23rd Mar '11 - 3:05pm

  I think the Corporation Tax decrease is a good measure for smaller companies struggling in the current economic climate. However it would be good to get the multinationals to pay a fraction what the small people do with all their Off-shore Subsidiaries and structures. Did someone mention Barclays ?

  Allied to the fact there will still be a deficit of circa £30 Billion at the end of this parliament, when the coalition firmly entrenched in stone that they would eliminate, it and be judged on that …….

  Well, It just proves their policies aren’t working.

• paul barker 23rd Mar '11 - 3:23pm

  Osborne almost managed to make it interesting, impressive for a Budget.

  Was surprised again by how bad a speaker Milliband is, far worse than Foot or Kinnock.

• Andrew Shuttlewood 23rd Mar '11 - 3:26pm

  @ben to be fair they have promised to eliminate the structural portion of the deficit, not the cyclical part.

  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Structural_deficit

• Liberal Eye 23rd Mar '11 - 3:35pm

  Tax Research UK confirms the tax breaks for the rich, specifically give aways for big companies and incentives to offshore activities plus lots of juicy new opportunities for tax avoidance (if you can afford a top tax consultant).

  http://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2011/03/23/the-great-tax-heist-is-worse-than-we-dared-fear-575-tax-rate-for-big-business/

  And to get the forecast of borrowing down Osborne has had to forecast revenue growth of around 6% pa. It’s fantasy island.

  http://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2011/03/23/extraordinary-6-growth-assumptions-in-government-revenue-in-the-budget/

• Dan Falchikov 23rd Mar '11 - 4:09pm

  Here’s my take…

  http://livingonwords.blogspot.com/2011/03/budget-giving-with-one-hand-and-taking.html

• Andrew Tennant 23rd Mar '11 - 4:12pm

  @ben
  Why wouldn’t they be happy? What we saw today was the implementation of significant parts of the Liberal Democrat manifesto.

• AndrewM 23rd Mar '11 - 4:34pm

  @ben: The further cut in Corporation Tax announced today applies to companies with profits of more than £1,500,000. So while they are definitely smaller than companies making tens or hundreds of millions of profit, I’m not sure how many of them most people would think of as “small companies”…

  @Andrew Tennant: Apart from the further increase in personal allowance, which is welcome and of course in the Coalition Agreement, could you spell out precisely the “significant parts of the Liberal Democrat manifesto” that were implemented today?

• Andrew Tennant 23rd Mar '11 - 5:07pm

  @AndrewM
  Sure:
  – more generous state pension entitlements
  – establishment of a £3Bn Green Investment Bank with powers to borrow and lend
  – greater borrowing powers for councils, and more local control of tax money raised
  – support for research and development, manufacturing, green power and home insulation
  – rebalancing of the economic geography, to encourage development in areas outside of London through the creation of enterprise zones
  – reduced regulation on small businesses
  – new apprenticeships and technical colleges
  – support for non-banking sectors and heavier levies on the banks
  – cancellation of tax reliefs and loopholes and greater measures to minimise avoidance
  – introduction of more prohibitive carbon pricing and pollution taxes

  The relevant sections of the manifesto for your reference:
  Your Job – http://network.libdems.org.uk/manifesto2010/libdem_2010_job.pdf
  Your money – http://network.libdems.org.uk/manifesto2010/libdem_2010_money.pdf

• Ben 23rd Mar '11 - 5:13pm

  @AndrewM: I missed the part on it applying on profits of more than 1.5 million. Not good for the small companies then that need the help. Smacks of helping their donators.

• lloyd 23rd Mar '11 - 6:50pm

  Ok I’m getting fed up now of hearing that VAT on petrol went up 3p in Jan – it didn’t. ITV news seemed to have bought Labour’s dodgy figures. The difference between 20 and 17 1/2 isn’t 3p so stop pretending it is!

  If you are going to attack the budget stick to facts don’t make them up.

  I for one would prefer a cut in Employer’s national insurance to a corporation tax cut – this would make it cheaper for companies to employ more people and thereby cut unemployment.

• Steve 23rd Mar '11 - 7:13pm

  @lloyd
  “The difference between 20 and 17 1/2 isn’t 3p so stop pretending it is!”

  If petrol today costs £1.33 at 20% VAT then at 17.5% VAT it would have cost £1.33*1.175/1.2=£1.30. I make that 3p per litre cheaper.

• lloyd 23rd Mar '11 - 10:39pm

  @steve
  If something was £1.175 on 31st December at 17 1/2% VAT. Then in Jan it would of been £1.20 under 20% VAT.

• Steve 23rd Mar '11 - 11:34pm

  @lloyd
  But petrol’s measured in price per litre, so to say the price has gone up by 3p is consistent with people’s understanding of the unit of petrol price.

• Alex 24th Mar '11 - 12:53am

  “I for one would prefer a cut in Employer’s national insurance to a corporation tax cut – this would make it cheaper for companies to employ more people and thereby cut unemployment.”

  Would agree, but can this be done without having to apply it to all companies. I don’t know the answer, which is why I’m asking. If so then I definitely agree with you. If not I think it would go too far, especially if you have to link it to employee numbers instead of profit. Although, shouldn’t any money a company gets to save on tax also help them employ more people?

• andrew purches 24th Mar '11 - 10:28am

  Robbing Peter in the North Sea to pay for Paul’s ease on the Petrol forecourt makes some sort of very short term concession to the headline writers copy needs, but it is” all my Eye and Betty Martin” in reality. The real cost to community needs in the next couple of years will be the complete removal of Fuel Duty allowances to the bus operators by 2014, which will ratchet up the cost of fares on public bus transport by about 20% or more. Add to this,the reduction,and down here in West Sussex,the wholesale removal, of bus subsidies, then we are facing a large scale reduction in bus services, particularly in rural areas. Not a squeak of course from our Minister ,Norman Baker (Lib Dem) as yet ! Whenever,if ever!