Keir Starmer at it again..

[Sniffer]

Is it just me but does the EV vehicle tax seem quite disproportionate? Why tax per mile rather than just lump a category into the current system like other cars?

That would be easier. Company car drivers have saved fortunes by going electric so going back to a system that was charged that way would be fair. It punishes those funding their own purchase of EVs which is counterproductive to the aims of going electric.

 

[Sniffer]

I know it’s not easy to praise anything that the government is doing but Rachel Reeves is a good performer at the dispatch box when doing the budget.
No doubt that it may unravel in the hours that follow but on first hearing it doesn’t seem too bad.

 

[visage]

Badenoch is so bad at this.

 

[Elephant Pyjamas]

Badenoch is so bad at this.

She's got a lot of love from the press. Haven't seen it yet.

 

[Elephant Pyjamas]

Funny how all the news companies are talking about fiscal drag all of a sudden.

It's been around since 2020! (Or was it 2019?) Either way there was never this much scrutiny of Tory budgets.

 

[Del Woppio]

Tbf Reeves did explicitly say a year ago that she wouldn't extend the freeze because it was an effective tax rise that hurt ordinary people

 

[Deutsch Wolf]

The council tax thing is about 20 years overdue, doesn't go far enough but it's a start.

An absolute scandal that the bands have been totally unaltered since 1991. 1991 FFS! I wasn't even in senior school then and I'm 45 soon.

 

[Templeton Peck]

Nicked off Facebook

Sick and tired of hearing boomers on the radio droning on about "Benefits Britain". Yet this was the first generation of people that benefitted from a functional post-war welfare state (as well as a free National Health service).

Family Allowance was actually introduced in 1946, which so many people have somehow forgotten, where for every 2nd child onwards - the family received a fixed rate payment to the age of 16. In 1975 that was extended to every child, until the tories cut it back to two kids a few years ago.

One older woman has just stated that "I grew up in a family of 6, and my poor mother never got one single hand out from the state". And yet she did - her mum got five payments from the state every single week up to the August after each childs 16th birthday.

But as long as you enjoy your triple lock pension, Maureen from Basildon, that's all that matters, eh!

 

[EpsomWolf]

Probably all focus on areas we think we’re likely to be most affected but a few thoughts on some interesting decisions announced yesterday and the likely impacts on the housing and rental sector.

Before getting into it, it’s very clear there is a coherent strategy and the changes implemented built on last years foundations. Always going to debates around whether they go far enough of course but it looks to me like there is competency and Labour will use their full term to bring about significant change whilst keeping markets relatively stable through sensible incremental adjustments. Looks too like there are one or two obvious omissions this time but no doubt they’re to be phased in gently and kept in store for the time being.
Anyway, you decide…

2% increase on base rates of property income tax, 22%, 42%, 47%

Some HMRC changes meaning reliefs and allowances now need to be set against other income first, meaning effectively they are removing opportunities to shelter rental profits within personal allowances or other reliefs.

Interesting new powers given to mayors and local councils to introduce an overnight levy, essentially a tourist tax, hotels, B&B’s, Airbnb’s and so on, the Airbnb boom particularly driven by landlords chasing higher yields. A note here about the ‘coherent strategy’ - this builds on the last tax year’s abolition of the Furnished Holiday Lettings policy.

The big one (I’d imagine stored for next year) is the omission of the shockwave inducing NI on rental income proposal. Much understandable debate around rental income of say, 25k not being pulled in for NI, when someone actually working to earning it would.

A few other things going on probably not really worth going into at the moment such as the protests against costs of going green for landlords etc which the government is standing firmly against, but those essentially are the standouts. Whether costs get passed on to tenants is of course another matter. FWIW I don’t think the market will wear that and the landlords will take that hit, with the net result of more leaving which is ultimately the goal, but at a controlled speed maintaining supply and avoiding rental surges.

Won’t please the radicals but seems like a lot of sense to me.

 

[Templeton Peck]

Labour MPs attack Starmer U-turn over workers’ rights as ‘complete betrayal’

Former minister says ditching plan for day-one protection against unfair dismissal ‘definitely is a manifesto breach’

www.theguardian.com