The Budget 2009

[Nixt]

The Chancellor of the Exchequer has announced his budget for 2009. A brief summary is here:

At-a-glance: Budget 2009

These are the areas where Alistair Darling is making significant announcements in Wednesday's Budget. This at-a-glance guide will be updated with the key points as he speaks:

CIGARETTES AND ALCOHOL

• Alcohol and cigarettes taxes to go up 2% from midnight - one estimate is that it would put 5p on the average pint of beer

• Fuel duty to rise by 2p per litre from September

CAR SCRAPPAGE SCHEME

• From next month until March 2010 motorists to get £2,000 discount on new cars if they trade in cars older than 10 years

TAX

# Income tax for those earning more than £150,000 to rise to 50% from April 2010

# Tax relief on pensions to be reduced for people on more than £150,000 a year

UK ECONOMY

• Economy forecast to shrink 3.5% in 2009

• Growth expected to pick up in 2010, expanding by 1.25%.

• Economy to grow by 3.5% annually from 2011

• Public borrowing to increase to £175bn this year

• Borrowing levels to rise by £173bn, £140bn, £118bn and £97bn in years after

• Consumer price inflation to fall to 1% by end of year.

JOBS AND TRAINING

• Government support for economy to protect 500,000 jobs

• All long-term unemployed under 25s to be offered job or training

• £1.7bn additional resources for Job Centre network

• £250m funding to help people get work experience in growth industries

• Funding to create 54,000 new places in sixth form education

HOUSING

• Scheme to guarantee mortgage backed securities to boost lending

• Stamp duty holiday for homes up to £175,000 to be extended to end of year

• Extra £80m for shared equity mortgage scheme

# £500m to kickstart stalled housing projects

# £100m for local authorities to build energy efficient homes

# £50m to upgrade housing for the armed forces

GOVERNMENT SAVINGS

• An extra £9bn in efficiency savings is planned

• Public spending to be cut from 1.1% next year to 0.7% in 2011-2012

BENEFITS

# Child tax credit to rise by £20 by 2010

# Child trust funds for disabled children to rise by £100 a year, £200 a year for severely disabled children

SAVINGS

# Annual limit for tax-free ISAs to rise to more than £10,000 for over-50s this year and for everyone else next year

ENVIRONMENT

# £525m for offshore wind projects

# £435m support for energy efficiency schemes

HELP FOR BUSINESS

# Loss-making companies to be able to reclaim more taxes paid in the last three years

PENSIONERS

# Grandparents of working age who care for their grandchildren will see that work count towards their entitlement for the basic state pension

# Winter fuel allowance to be maintained at higher level - £250 for over 60s and £400 for over-80s - for another year

# The basic state pension will be increased by at least 2.5%, regardless of inflation

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8011882.stm

[-:Undertaker:-]

The Chancellor of the Exchequer has announced his budget for 2009. A brief summary is here:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8011882.stm

CIGARETTES AND ALCOHOL
Yet again taxes on these keep going up and up, but I suppose we are under a Labour government so its not much of a suprise.

CAR SCRAPPAGE SCHEME
Waste of money as per usual, a waste of public money for another useless green scheme to make this government look good.

TAX
More tax rises yet again, punishing those who earn their money for Labours own bad economic decisions.

UK ECONOMY
As David Cameron pointed out, we are now surging into debt thanks to this government, we are spending money we do not have.

JOBS AND TRAINING
Re-train people whom are already trained? - again a foolish waste of money on a useless scheme. Good on the job centre support as it seems a very good service. Overall except for the training good, as training in industry we need is the way to strengthen a economy.

HOUSING
Another waste on green issues, pointless and there is no market for new houses at the moment, how about instead of building cramped new awful houses they invest in turning around pre-1940's houses which would cut costs considerably. The armed forces increase couldn't of come sooner enough, but i'm afraid its too late.

GOVERNMENT SAVINGS
Government needs to cut down civil service, and cut down on whitehall departments. An enormous amount of money is wasted daily on burucracy, lets put a stop to it.

BENEFITS
Good on helping more disabled people, appears to be a good move - shame we dont have the actual money and it will just add to debt.

ENVIRONMENT
Appears to be the biggest waste in this budget, wind farms are a awful way of providing energy and barely over their costs, indeed often make a loss. As soon as the climate change myth is quashed the better, then we should hopefully stop throwing money into a bottomless pit.

HELP FOR BUSINESS
How about this idea and it will solve a lot of business problems, and even indeed shorten the recession. Since the banks are nationalised make them lend to businesess which they are currently not doing. We paid for them so make them lend money so that the circulation of money restarts the economy.

PENSIONERS
Good to see proposals, but I think like all of Labours other failed attempts this will also fail. I'll wait and see but I aren't holding my breath.


Overall we can finally see the amount of debt we're now in and the seriousness of the situation and the lack of preparation by the Labour Government to combat the recession. A lack of help for business which will just prolong the recession and a general waste of more money under the climate change myth.

[Nixt]

I agree that the scrapping scheme is a crazy waste of money, however I think it will help to stimulate the failing motor vehicle business. I am not going to complain about it though, because I am going to be using it.

[Roboevil]

What's so bad about tax on alcohol and cigarettes?

[-:Undertaker:-]

What's so bad about tax on alcohol and cigarettes?

As we pay more already for them, so why should we pay more?

[Ardemax]

As we pay more already for them, so why should we pay more?

because if you hadn't noticed the drink & drive death rates or maybe the after affect of having 12 cans a night.
this idea is to stop people buying so much alchy and doing something useful.

[Nixt]

because if you hadn't noticed the drink & drive death rates or maybe the after affect of having 12 cans a night.
this idea is to stop people buying so much alchy and doing something useful.

To be fair, the idea has nothing to do with that. It's to do with getting more money from tax.

[Fez]

If the government wanted to crack down on alcy and cig deaths, they'd raise tax by 9000%. The only reason we have the products in the country is because of the already high tax.

[no waiii]

omg the rich of to pay 50%tax

that is ** tbh

[Fez]

Really what they're doing is looking at the person with the biggest wallet and yelling "I'll 'ave a bit of that." but with rich people become poorer, higher-middle class people will become richer and then poorer again due to taxes and then the rich people will be poorer and the... yeah.

Taxing the people with the most money won't solve a financial crisis... unless the financial crisis is that rich people have too much money.