I have listened to budgets and autumn statements for 35 years.
I have not heard one with so little content before now.
There was one tax change of consequence - and the stamp duty reform is welcome and overdue.
The devolvement of tax power to Northern Ireland is the beginning of a tax competition disaster for the UK as a whole and will cost Northern Ireland dear.
No one knows what the diverted profits tax is.
The cut in the deficit is being engineered by an accounting trick on interest paid.
The reality is that tax receipts will be £23 billion lower this year than forecast.
And real spending savings are only about £8 billion at most.
You can see why Osborne had to fiddle the books....
And that may be Osborne's epitaph: he's the Chancellor who fiddled as the UK economy failed as a result of his refusal to intervene.
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Bow down ye lower middle classes.
Richard – what’s the “accounting trick on interest paid” to show a deficit cut?
I suspect interest on QE funds taken out of spending – numbers fit
Instead of just tearing up bonds they have paid for by creating cash, they are holding these bonds on their balance sheet, leading to the strange situation of the government receiving interest from it’s own bonds.
I see no good reason why these bonds cannot simply be disposed of.
You mean cancelled?
Effectively they have been already
We need more QE now- but green QE this time
“I have not heard one with so little content before now.”
You can’t have been listening very hard or (more likely) had made your mind up what your reaction was going to be before Osborne started. I picked up on;
Diverted Profits Tax –
Country-by-country reporting to HMRC – legislation will be introduced in Finance Bill 2015
Hybrid mismatch arrangements – The government will consult on implementing agreed OECD rules for addressing hybrid mismatch arrangements.
Restricting tax advantages on incorporation – changes to ER and Corporation tax relief
Overarching contracts of employment and temporary workers – review of ‘umbrella companies’-
Special purpose share schemes countered –
Investment managers: new legislation to counter disguised fee income –
Modernising the taxation of corporate debt and derivative contracts
Preventing abuse of late-paid interest rules
Pension pots on death — the 55% rate scrapped
Joint annuities – changes to treatment after death.
ISAs – changes to IHT rules
Research & Development – From 1 April 2015 the research & development expenditure credit will increase from 10% to 11% and the SME scheme super deduction from 225% to 230%.
Resident non-domiciles – the annual charge paid by non-domiciled individuals to increase for long term residents.
Bank loss relief – The amount of a bank’s annual profit that can be offset by carried-forward losses will be restricted to 50% form 1 April 2015.
Annual tax on enveloped property – The rates of ATED will increase by 50% above inflation.
Air Passenger Duty changes
And I’ve left a lot of minor changes out. An awful lot of the above is anti-avoidance aimed at problems that Labour never tackled and which I would have thought an unbiased tax campaigner would be welcoming.
That’s called sweating the small stuff
Rather as you are called a time waster
Wow – I thought that only nasty socialist governments did that sort of thing (distorting reality). Strange world isn’t it?
Until austerity is dumped and government investment in jobs, proper regulation of the banking sector and there is a severe crackdown on tax avoidance/evasion, it will be ever thus.
You cannot deliver an economic recovery with austerity measures. You never could and you never will.
Not that this government really has economic recovery in mind anyway. They merely use policy to serve vested interests.
Stevo
Can you sort out your email because I am bored with all the returned mail messages I get and will stop your posts soon if they continue and have no wish to do so
Richard
My mail seems OK. Not sure what is going on.
I don’t believe for one second that this government has any interest in the welfare of the people of this country, destroying the state is their first task by denying
tax revenues for services, second allowing the debt to grow through austerity and not increasing taxes on the wealthy and large corporations and thirdly forcing unemployed and employed into working poverty, poverty, fear and insecurity are their weapons, it’s their master plan.