Wednesday, March 21, 2012
On 21 March 2012 the Chancellor George Osborne delivered his
Budget
statement to the Commons.
Despite the fact that there is little money for the usual Budget
'giveaways',
Osborne was able to give some good news to low and middle
income
earners by announcing that the Government will raise the
personal
allowance in income tax to £8,105 in April 2012. From next April
this will
rise to £9,205. Meanwhile, the highest earners will see the top
rate of
income tax reduced from 50p to 45p from April 2013.
After some last minute negotiations on the detail, child benefit
will be
phased out when someone in a household has an income of more
than
£50,000. It will fall by 1% for every £100 earned over £50,000.
Only those
earning more than £60,000 will lose the benefit completely.
All tax payers will also receive a personal tax statement
detailing how
much tax they pay, and how the Government has spent it.
Osborne was also able to give a bit of good news to the market
too. The
Office of Budget Responsibility (OBR) now forecasts 0.8 per cent
growth in
2012, compared to 0.7 per cent in November. Let's not forget,
however,
that in his first Budget in June 2010 the forecast for 2012 was
two per cent
higher, at 2.8 per cent.
Forecasted growth in 2013 has been revised down slightly to 2 per
cent
(from 2.1 per cent). Nonetheless, the OBR and the Treasury will
be
relieved that significant revisions to the predictions are not
required.
Property was hit hard in this Budget. The Chancellor has
introduced a new
top rate of Stamp Duty at 7% on properties worth over £2 million.
In
addition, the Budget reveals that the Government will consult on
a
potential annual charge for properties worth over £2 million - the
so‐called
'Mansion Tax'. The Chancellor also announced a major crackdown
on
stamp duty avoidance by introducing a new 15% rate of Stamp Duty
for the
most expensive residential properties owned by companies.
The nature of coalition politics means that we knew most of this
already.
The public arguments and constant leaking ‐ from both sides of
the
coalition ‐ over the last few weeks means that there were few
surprises in
this Budget.
Whilst many of the announcements will be relatively popular with
the
electorate, leaking by the Lib Dems means that George Osborne
was
denied his Gordon Brown‐style last minute 'big reveal' over the
top rate
tax cut. What this means for relations between the Lib Dems
and
Conservatives at the top table in Government remains to be
seen.