July Budget 2015: Liberalised shopping on Sundays will deliver big benefits to the consumer July 7, 2015 The liberalisation of Sunday trading hours, expected to be announced in the Budget today, is a timely response to the way in which Sundays have changed in the 21 years since shopping hours were last reformed in 1994. Sundays remain a day of leisure for most of us, and our leisure time is enriched by [...]
July Budget 2015: What time is it, how to watch it and what to expect July 7, 2015 Chancellor George Osborne is busily preparing to deliver his "emergency Budget" tomorrow, with its name alluding to the fact it's so close to the General Election. But it's also attracting attention is because it's the first exclusively Conservative Budget in almost 20 years – in 1996 then-chancellor Kenneth Clarke delivered a package framed as the "Rolls-Royce recovery [...]
July Budget 2015: George Osborne increased welfare in coalition by £28bn. Where is it spent? July 7, 2015 Welfare is one of the big topics of the upcoming July Budget, and so it’s probably important to know where the vast sums of money go. The UK government spent £251bn on welfare payments during the financial year 2013-14, representing 37 per cent of all government spending, data released by the Office of National Statistics [...]
July Budget 2015: As inheritance tax system is set to change where will house prices drop below new threshold? July 7, 2015 Tomorrow, George Osborne is expected to announce changes to the inheritance tax system (IHT) meaning a couple can hand a £1m estate on to their children without being taxed for the privilege. Currently, a couple has a tax-free allowance of £325,000 a person (£650,000 a couple). Although IHT is applied to an entire estate, soaring [...]
July Budget 2015: From benefits caps and child tax credits cuts to pension and inheritance tax changes, here’s what to expect July 7, 2015 Tomorrow, George Osborne takes to the despatch box for his first truly Conservative Budget – indeed, the first majority Conservative Budget since 1996. The chancellor is notoriously good at trailing the contents of his Budgets before he stands up – so what do we know so far? Read more: Budget live – all the key announcements [...]
George Osborne to overhaul Sunday trading hours in biggest shakeup for 20 years July 6, 2015 Shops and supermarkets could be allowed to open for longer on Sundays in one of the biggest shakeup of trading laws in 20 years. Chancellor George Osborne will use tomorrow’s Budget to unveil plans to devolve powers to mayors or councils to decide for themselves what the rule over trading hours should be in their [...]
Two more bad arguments for why Britain needs a mandatory living wage July 6, 2015 With £12bn of working age welfare cuts expected in this Budget, Conservative voices are clamouring for the “living wage” to be used as a means of reducing in-work poverty. In the past week, two celebrity former advisers to the Prime Minister, Steve Hilton and Rohan Silva, have argued the government should boost the national minimum [...]
George Osborne needs a long-term plan for taxation July 6, 2015 “Don’t tinker with taxes” is a consistent cry from business. True, few will bemoan a change that benefits them, but it’s hard to overestimate how much firms value certainty in their tax affairs. It’s difficult to plan ahead if you don’t know what your costs are likely to be. Yet we now effectively have two [...]
July Budget 2015: Boris Johnson says cut top tax rate and introduce living wage July 6, 2015 Boris Johnson has said he thinks the government should cut the top rate of income tax from 45 pence and simultaneously make some of Britain's biggest companies pay the living wage. The London mayor argues only boosting the income of society's richest individuals is unfair, and should be matched with pay increases for low-paid employees [...]
George Osborne says emergency July Budget will see £12bn welfare cuts July 5, 2015 Chancellor George Osborne has said that he has identified all £12bn of welfare cuts that he needs to make as part of the government’s plan to balance the budget in three years. “We have found that £12bn of savings in welfare that we said we’d be able to find,” Osborne said yesterday in an [...]