July Budget 2015: George Osborne embraced political cunning at the expense of economic prudence July 8, 2015 On the one hand, this was the first fully Conservative Budget in nearly two decades. On the other hand, it is effectively George Osborne’s third Budget in just eight months. He has become a master magician at the politics of presentation. Almost every sentence was crafted to confound and confuse the Labour opposition or to [...]
July Budget 2015: Will George Osborne’s new national living wage hit the number of people in work? July 8, 2015 Sam Bowman, deputy director of the Adam Smith Institute, says Yes. There is lots of research into what the minimum wage does to jobs. Of the 103 papers reviewed by economists David Neumark and William Wascher in a 2006 study, most of them showed that raising the minimum wage reduces long-term employment. Of the 33 [...]
July Budget 2015: Shares dive for green energy firms as Osborne scraps tax exemption July 8, 2015 In today's Budget, chancellor George Osborne announced that the government is scrapping a green tax exemption enjoyed by renewable energy companies since 2001. Read more: George Osborne cuts corporation tax and bank levy as he tells firms "Britain is open for business" Currently, tax is not paid on renewable electricity supplied to businesses under renewable [...]
July Budget 2015 summary: All the personal finance measures announced by George Osborne during his speech July 8, 2015 Today's Budget may not have included as many measures aimed at pensioners and first-time buyers as last time; today, George Osborne seemed more intent on telling firms that Britain was "open for business". Osborne's headline grabber this time around was inheritance tax and the creation of a family home allowance which will help people "pass on [...]
Return of the Mack: How Barclays chairman John McFarlane earned his reputation as “Mack the Knife” July 8, 2015 John McFarlane has barely been in situ three months as Barclays’ chairman, but this morning he claimed his first scalp: Antony “nicest guy in banking” Jenkins, the man appointed three years ago to bring out Barclays’ cuddly side, will step down at the end of next week. Read more: From the Libor scandal to the [...]
July Budget 2015: George Osborne’s favourite words July 8, 2015 He may have cut £12bn from welfare budgets – but chancellor George Osborne pronounced 9.847 words in the July Budget. Although, in the midst of jeers, he repeated some things – so we could just call it 10,000 words. Either way, he had a lot to say. Predominantly about welfare, tax credits and pensions – [...]
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: 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 [...]