Spring budget - what tax to cut?

[malvolio]

You know you can get the Guardian crossword for free online, but you choose to pay £150 a year for it? And you think I'm the thick one

Or perhaps I'm being economical with the truth in the pursuit of winding up the gullible?

As regards crosswords, the Guardian one is defiantly obtuse on occasion - I don't mind difficult, but there are limits. I prefer the Times daily, which takes a satisfying 20-30 minutes on average. The Telegraph is equally satisfying but I can't stand the associated newspaper.

[courtg9000]

Or perhaps I'm being economical with the truth in the pursuit of winding up the gullible?

As regards crosswords, the Guardian one is defiantly obtuse on occasion - I don't mind difficult, but there are limits. I prefer the Times daily, which takes a satisfying 20-30 minutes on average. The Telegraph is equally satisfying but I can't stand the associated newspaper.

20-30 mins for the Times crossword? 12-15 tops, come on. I could use the word obtuse but I won't!
The key to be being a proper intellectual though is to get the Telegraph crossword down to less than 10 mins.

[Snooky]

As regards crosswords, the Guardian one is defiantly obtuse on occasion - I don't mind difficult, but there are limits. I prefer the Times daily, which takes a satisfying 20-30 minutes on average. The Telegraph is equally satisfying but I can't stand the associated newspaper.

Telegraph is the only one for me (I also don't buy the newspaper), but that's mainly because over years of doing it, I've come to recognise what they're saying in their cryptic clues. I'm sure I could also learn how to interpret the Times or Guardian clues but I can't really be bothered at my age. Perhaps if I ever retire.....

[malvolio]

20-30 mins for the Times crossword? 12-15 tops, come on. I could use the word obtuse but I won't!
The key to be being a proper intellectual though is to get the Telegraph crossword down to less than 10 mins.

I used to be around that level for the Telegraph, routinely completing it inside a 15 minute tea break. Haven't tried it for a while.

My par for the Times was to complete it between Swindon and Didcot on the 125 to London - so around 15 minutes. These days I have most of the early morning to fill so I'm not in any rush...

[sreed]

From today’s set of carefully choreographed leaks, it looks like a 2p cut in standard employee NI is nailed on. In isolation, can’t say I’m unhappy with that as it benefits taxpayers with earned income and further reduces the artificial distinction with income tax and the potential for obfuscation that comes with it. Another 8 points of Ee NI to go.

New taxes that he’s using to pay for tax cuts/freezes - windfall tax on North Sea oil, new vaping levy (along with a corresponding hike on tobacco), reducing tax breaks for holiday let owners, reducing scope of non-dom tax breaks and further Pinocchio cuts in future public spending that won’t happen on his watch and are likely not deliverable given our defence requirements, rising dependency ratio, increasing health & care needs and protected benefits (the state pension being the biggest of them).

[BlueSharp]

From today’s set of carefully choreographed leaks, it looks like a 2p cut in standard employee NI is nailed on. In isolation, can’t say I’m unhappy with that as it benefits taxpayers with earned income and further reduces the artificial distinction with income tax and the potential for obfuscation that comes with it. Another 8 points of Ee NI to go.

New taxes that he’s using to pay for tax cuts/freezes - windfall tax on North Sea oil, new vaping levy (along with a corresponding hike on tobacco), reducing tax breaks for holiday let owners, reducing scope of non-dom tax breaks and further Pinocchio cuts in future public spending that won’t happen on his watch and are likely not deliverable given our defence requirements, rising dependency ratio, increasing health & care needs and protected benefits (the state pension being the biggest of them).

Drop it 2p in this budget and then campaign for scrapping it completely if the Tories get re-elected? By leaving Income tax where it is it's starting to counter the benefits of the triple lock as more pensioners are taxed.

[Smartie]

Not sure the original assumption is valid - should we be cutting any tax when services like the NHS will be taking a massive income cut due to inflation?

Of course we need efficiency/productivity improvements such as getting the NHS away from paper patient notes hanging on the bed and towards go anywhere notes on integrated systems and tablets.

Always promised, but never delivered.

If I had to choose a couple of dodgy taxes, I'd get rid of stamp duty which is a huge drag on labour mobility, downsizing etc. Problem is house prices would probably just go up by the same amount and the exchequer would need to get that money somewhere else, handing the value to existing homeowners.

Also the approx. 2/3 marginal income tax rate on the £100k - £125k bracket due to the loss of the personal tax free allowance.
Highly unfair, reduces productivity through avoidance by any means including by working less.
Not great if we need more doctors.

[sreed]

Not sure the original assumption is valid - should we be cutting any tax when services like the NHS will be taking a massive income cut due to inflation?

Of course we need efficiency/productivity improvements such as getting the NHS away from paper patient notes hanging on the bed and towards go anywhere notes on integrated systems and tablets.

An honest appraisal would probably return a conclusion that (per the current state of public finances and projected demographic changes and a rising dependency ratio over the coming years), we can’t afford any significant tax cuts. But this being an election year budget by a self-labelled ‘tax-cutting’ government, I thought it was safe to assume that there would be a headline grabbing tax-cut or two announced tomorrow in the last/second-last pre-election budget.

Unless things change radically, the NHS will eventually always get thrown the money it needs in the end to (barely) stay afloat, but in an unplanned, short-termist way which plugs the most visible holes temporarily until it drops off the front pages, and will only exacerbate problems in the medium to long term.

[Smartie]

Actually, the latest figures show that most people (voters) don't want tax cuts and would rather the money was put into public services.

The answer is probably that the tax cuts are to please the Tory party members/MPs and try and stop it falling apart, rather than getting any electoral benefit.

An honest appraisal would probably return a conclusion that (per the current state of public finances and projected demographic changes and a rising dependency ratio over the coming years), we can’t afford any significant tax cuts. But this being an election year budget by a self-labelled ‘tax-cutting’ government, I thought it was safe to assume that there would be a headline grabbing tax-cut or two announced tomorrow in the last/second-last pre-election budget.

Unless things change radically, the NHS will eventually always get thrown the money it needs in the end to (barely) stay afloat, but in an unplanned, short-termist way which plugs the most visible holes temporarily until it drops off the front pages, and will only exacerbate problems in the medium to long term.

[Smartie]

Of course we should remember that whatever tax cuts he pulls out of the hat, taxes will still be going up thanks to the freezing of income tax bands until 2028, a huge tax increase for working people including the least well off.