Osborne said to face £20bn black hole in Budget

[Platypus]

Couldn't he just print more money, then have huge tax cuts to bribe the electorate and then when Labour get in they'll be stuck with the mess

ha ha ha where did you get the idea ?!

[AtW]

Vote for Osborne or he'll tear you a new one ...

[Flashman]

I'm surprised nobody has yet mentioned the EU and unregulated immigration as the cause of the £20B hole.

We don't get paid to go on about the EU all the time.

[Zero Liability]

Vote for Osborne or he'll tear you a new one ...

Hasn't he already?

[MicrosoftBob]

Hasn't he already?

Perhaps this time he'll use lube though, after all there is an election incoming

[AtW]

Hasn't he already?

I said NEW one...

[lilelvis2000]

Funny thing inflation, you can never quite catch up to it - especially if you are the one causing it to rise.

[Zero Liability]

Could be an interesting budget this year:
Osborne told what to include in Budget 2014 :: Contractor UK

Lots of changes rumoured to be coming in.

From the article:


In fact, when he heard of the proposal by Tory MP Ben Gummer to change the name of National Insurance Contributions to “Earnings Tax,” a Treasury source told the Daily Telegraph that the chancellor was “attracted to the idea.”

Another national newspaper, The Independent, quoted Mr Gummer as being “pleased” to hear that Mr Osborne is interested in the proposal which, if accepted, would be the first step to the long-threatened merger of NI with income tax.

I hope he is planning on more than just renaming it.

Recommended in 2010 by the Office of Tax Simplification as a way to “take away the need for IR35,” the Institute of Directors has previously told ContractorUK that “contractors would not be made worse off” from the merger.


Which would be great, but one would think that would be a function of how much the contractor in question earns and how any allowances were to be set, so the devil would be in the details. Certainly would make more sense than keeping IR35 and trying to ramp up its already expensive investigations with no guarantee of higher yields.

[AtW]

Yes, for sure they'll change name, but they won't merge NI with income tax and certainly won't shift employer NICs to the employee - basically Cons are all talk and the same kind of liars as Labour are, with only exception that they maybe won't charge as much direct tax as Labour would.

[Zero Liability]

He might as well go have a piss in the wind if all he is considering is to rename it, as if that'd make the slightest difference to anyone. It's something the OTS has been banging on about for years now, though, so who knows perhaps he will listen at some point.