Greek debt crisis: IMF’s Lagarde says debt restructuring needed July 8, 2015 IMF chief Christine Lagarde has stressed Greece's huge debt pile needs restructuring and said the organisation remains "fully engaged" with the cash-strapped country. "Greece is in a situation of acute crisis, which needs to be addressed seriously and promptly," she said during a speech at the Brookings Institution think-tank in Washington. Earlier today Greek Prime Minister [...]
June 2015 FOMC Minutes: The Fed is worried about Greece July 8, 2015 Minutes from the Federal Reserve's June meeting show officials want to see further evidence the economy is picking up before they hike rates, and are concerned about the Greek debt crisis. The minutes from its meeting June 16-17 show officials have been pleased by positive economic developments such as strong consumer spending and signs wages [...]
July Budget 2015: Inheritance tax threshold to rise to exclude £1m homes July 8, 2015 The chancellor has increased the inheritance tax threshold, allowing £1m homes to be passed down to children after death to be free of tax. As part of today's July Budget, George Osborne announced that, from 2017, there will be a new £175,000 allowance on homes left to children or grandchildren. The new allowance is in addition [...]
July Budget 2015: Osborne axes student grants and replaces them with loans July 8, 2015 Chancellor George Osborne has announced that student maintenance grants will be scrapped and replaced by loans, as part of his July Budget. "From the 2016-17 academic year we will replace maintenance grants with loans for new students – loans that only have to be paid back once they earn over £21,000 a year," he said. [...]
July Budget 2015: Here’s what Twitter said about George Osborne’s speech July 8, 2015 Before George Osborne even posed for the cameras with Budget box in hand, the pre-Budget buzz on Twitter had already reached 200 tweets per minute – then when he stepped up to the despatch box, that rocketed to more than 1,000 tweets per minute. The biggest talking point of the day was the student maintenance [...]
July Budget 2015: George Osborne’s spending plans in charts July 8, 2015 The first fully Conservative Budget in 18 years has arrived, and chancellor George Osborne hasn't been afraid to flex his muscle. Osborne paraded a new national living wage, committed himself to defence spending, promised £250m funding to help HMRC combat tax avoidance and evasion, abolished non-dom status and treated corporations to a tax cut. Here's [...]
July Budget 2015 – changes to mortgage tax relief: Here’s what to do now if you’re a buy-to-let landlord July 8, 2015 A major shake-up of the buy-to-let housing market could be about to take place, after chancellor George Osborne announced plans to change mortgage tax relief for landlords. In his Budget speech today, the chancellor said the relief will be cut to 20 per cent, from 40 to 45 per cent, in an effort to "level [...]
July Budget 2015: Dividend tax credit being scrapped in favour of £5,000 allowance July 8, 2015 Chancellor George Osborne is scrapping the dividend tax credit, introducing a £5,000 tax-free dividend in its place. On top of that, tax rates on dividend income are rising. Basic rate taxpayers – who currently pay 10 per cent, although this is offset by the tax credit – will pay 7.5 per cent on [...]
July Budget 2015: George Osborne cuts corporation tax and bank levy as he tells firms “Britain is open for business” July 8, 2015 George Osborne has made his case for keeping large corporations in the UK after he slashed corporation tax and the bank levy during the first all-Conservative Budget speech since 1996. In a Budget designed to "show the world the UK is open for business", the chancellor cut corporation tax to 18 per cent, as well as [...]
July Budget 2015: From Constantine to Margaret Thatcher – a brief history of Sunday trading hours July 8, 2015 It’s what retailers have been fighting for for generations: when George Osborne takes to the despatch box today, he may finally do what his predecessors couldn’t: scrap the Sunday Trading Act. The idea is that small retailers, who are faced with increased competition from their 24-7 online rivals, will be given a few extra hours [...]