Budget 2015: Young first-time home buyers given a helping hand with Help to Buy Isa March 18, 2015 With fewer young people able to afford to buy a home, the Budget aims to help them out. Tim Wallace asks: Will it work? Can you imagine paying £22,000 for a flat? It sounds like a joke now, but it was the average price of a first-time buyer’s home in Britain in 1984. It was [...]
On life, taxes and Osborne’s chance to beat a £20bn target March 18, 2015 If taxes are one of life’s few certainties, then taxes on banks are becoming just as predictable. Just when HSBC thought its lot could not get any tougher, up pops George Osborne with his bi-annual hike to the rate of the charge on lenders’ balance sheets. The chancellor’s final pre-General Election Budget included a commitment [...]
Budget 2015: Banks bear brunt of pre-election tax increases March 18, 2015 Britain’s banks were targeted yet again for a tax raid yesterday, as the chancellor hit them with the biggest tax hike of any sector. George Osborne increased the bank levy for the ninth time since it was introduced in 2011, in a move which will raise an extra £4.4bn in five years. The tax, which [...]
Budget 2015: Britain’s savers rewarded with new tax breaks March 18, 2015 Savers are to be rewarded with a new personal savers allowance, which the Treasury said would take 95 per cent of taxpayers out of savings tax altogether. In a nod to the difficulties imposed on savers by unimpressive interest rates, the chancellor has introduced an allowance of £1,000 of interest earned on savings. Those whose [...]
Budget 2015: Boozers set for a boost with cuts to beer, cider and Scotch duties March 18, 2015 Britain’s publicans raised a toast after further cuts to alcohol duties were announced in the 2015 Budget. With 1p off a pint and two per cent off cider duty, it marks the third year in a row duties have been cut. However, Britain’s budding wine growers will be disappointed as their duty was frozen. Ernst [...]
Budget 2015: Reactions to the chancellor’s statement March 18, 2015 THE BUSINESS GROUP Confederation of British Industry director generalJohn Cridland The Budget provides a clear plan for fiscal health and growth and will help businesses create jobs. “Stability and consistency are what businesses need to grow and prosper. This Budget sets the tone, providing a clear plan for fiscal health and growth. [...]
Budget 2015: George Osborne has discovered his mojo March 18, 2015 George Osborne has long been considered a cunning political strategist – in some circles, at least. Personally, for a long time, I found that argument difficult to accept. His first few Budgets hardly showed signs of high-level Westminster acumen. The debut of 2010 was inevitably tough, confirming an unpopular hike in VAT. The next prompted [...]
Budget 2015: Take-home pay set to increase for UK workers March 18, 2015 Britain's workers will take home more of their income from April onwards, when the personal allowance goes up to £10,600. The amount that can be earned before tax is applied will increase again, to £10,800, in 2016, and then go up to £11,000 in 2017. For those paying the higher rate of tax, at [...]
Budget 2015: Google Tax gets green light as Treasury aims to reap £3.1bn in new avoidance clampdown March 18, 2015 The government pledged another tax clampdown yesterday, with the implementation of a so-called “Google tax” taking centre stage. The Treasury expects to raise £3.1bn over the next five years through the various measures announced. There has been ongoing concern in many quarters over what is perceived to be an unfair diversion of taxes by multinationals [...]
Budget 2015: Government to create its own property management company March 18, 2015 The government aims to copy the commercial sector by creating a property management body to oversee its estate and help meet its target of selling £5bn of land and property by 2020. Budget documents released alongside the chancellor’s speech said the government will take a more “commercially driven approach” in managing its estate. As part [...]