I have an EV so I will consider it in 2028.
I have one buy to let property as a pension investment so via lose there.
Overall I am not really bothered.
How did the Budget affect you?
by 52 Comments
Comments
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
It was as best I could have expected personally.
It hasn’t made a great deal of difference to me, apart from I might get a bit less tax relief on my pension AVCs in my final year of employment, if I can stick at working until 2030, that is.
But my cousin is at the other end of the scale, with three boys, two with SEN, and she will get a much-needed boost by the lifting of the child support cap.
I’m happy to buy a handful fewer LPs each year if it means some kids are lifted out of poverty.
According to budget calculators, not by a penny. For some reason the media is trying to persuade me that I’m losing out on future pay rises because the income tax threshold hasn’t shifted, but I always understood that the Tories lowering NI was a bear trap anyway.
Personally, right now … no change.
Only duty on beer and tobacco in the immediate term.
Salary sacrifice and ISA limits may come into play in a couple of years, but by then the landscape may have shifted so still no affect.
The budget will arguably impactiompadt upon us all at some point since there is apparently no plan for growth, and no plan to manage the upward trend in spending on benefits, pensions, SENDs and a number of pther things. Without the former it’s difficult to see how the latter can be paid for. As things stand we are trying to do more and more things in the context of a growing population and an economy that hasn’t grown in any meaningful sense since 2008.
Yes, this is what matters. The various tinkerings will have some small effect on me (freezing thresholds, fuel duty freeze being reversed, minor change to tax breaks on my final year of pension contributions), but it’s far more important that people ask how the economy will be affected, as that will have a greater bearing on their lives in the long term. And the prospects are not good.
In the absence of any growth, one likely impact is greater taxation of relatively well off retired people. The government considered it this time, with the plan to increase income tax and reduce NI, but ultimately ducked it. Someone will probably have to grasp the nettle sooner or later, either by extending NI contributions to all income or bigger /new property taxes.
Every day I witness abject poverty. I’m happy to pay more tax to remove the two child cap. It’s the most cost effective way of lifting children out of poverty, 60% of whom live in working households.
As it happens, the budget isn’t going to have much impact on me. I don’t have a £2 million pound house.
The media seems to be spinning it as an attack on ‘hard working people’, but lifting kids out of poverty amongst all the free school meals, breakfast clubs and so on is fine by me. I will still go electric for my next car. I will pay a bit more tax on my pensions, but I am lucky enough that I doubt I will notice much.
I always think that there is far too much attention to the budget – once the news cycle moves on people just crack on and forget about it.
Never seems to make much difference to me they tot it all up and things are 52 quid a year more for the average household
This. It seems I will be modestly better off, but the increase will doubtless be swallowed up elsewhere, and living where I do it all seems rather far away. My entire economic existence is in the UK, but moving everything over here would be tedious and complicated, and in any case my estate goes to my offspring, also in the UK.
Hasn’t really affected me. It’ll hit Twang Jr with his student loan in due course but he’s utterly indifferent to that. I just hope they do something useful with the money. They have a dreadful legacy to sort out but need to get on with it and knock off the squabbling.
Well, I’ve recently sold the Bentley as the cost of fuel for my two Rollers and the Jag is such a drain. Mrs B thinks we should sell the horses and convert the stables into holiday lets, but I’m still pondering that one in the light of all my other income streams….Hopefully things will pick up when that nice Mr Farridge becomes PM and deports all those dreadful foreign johnnies.
Across the last two budgets, I’ve ended up paying quite a bit of extra tax. I’m actually fine with it in principle, as I’m inclined to see taxes as a bit of a civic duty and I can afford it.
The concern I do have, as touched on above, is how they’re going to use the money. It seems fairly clear that the country is spending more than it can afford, and that the economy isn’t growing. If the government’s only plan is ever-increasing taxation then I’m afraid we really are all kippered.
I also didn’t appreciate some of the noises that surrounded this budget. I’m happy to contribute more to genuinely help others and to improve society, but not to tickle the ideological peccadillos of our leaders and certainly not to backstop their incompetence. Some of the self back patting about “a Labour budget” seemed to fall into this category, as did some of the rhetoric around the people they were seeking to tax.
I was glad to see at least some concessions to the need to control spending in the budget. It seems fairly clear that there is waste somewhere in the system – or if there isn’t then we are in huge trouble. I am worried that there was so little for business, because there are a number of sectors that are really struggling, and sector struggles become human struggles in due course.
More than anything, I wish the government would stop the budget psychodrama. The drip feeding of every possible tax position to the press, the endless test balloons, the ludicrous pre-budget press conference. All of it is harmful to investment and it scares the shit out of people. It’s amateur and they should knock it off.
The IFS are quoted as saying ‘ households faced a “truly dismal” outlook for living standards. Helen Miller, its director, said the budget “felt mostly like the budget of a government trying to scrape through”, and urged ministers to focus on reforms to boost long-term growth’.
I am not optimistic. The one time a government can make tough choices is in the first 18 months or so of a Parliament.
I agree. It looks like a back bench management budget. What’s the plan Kier? What are the initiatives which add up to better growth, schools, health etc. Who is doing what? When will things happen? People saying it’s a messaging problem remind me of the Bill Clinton advisor who said “the Titanic didn’t have a messaging problem, it had an iceberg problem”. They need to get a grip.
I suspect that at this point in time they can’t get a grip. The two wings of the Labour Party are mutually incompatible, as we’re the Tories. Somewhere there might be a centerist group of people that might come up with something that wasn’t obsessed with immigration, vehemently opposed to anything related to business, or too scared of upsetting anyone ( hello, Lib Dems), but it doesn’t exist in our current political landscape.
I think that’s the problem with first past the post, if that happened then labour and the conservatives wouldn’t have the various factions infighting as they could split from the main party and have the chance of being voted in by electors being able to choose the party that best fits their views.
I’ve never really voted for the person I want I’ve voted for the person who’ll stop the one I don’t want to get in.
I agree with all of the above. There is no coherent vision to this budget because it’s been designed piecemeal to walk a narrow tightrope between various interest groups, most of whom are pretty disconnected from reality in one way or another. Probably the same as most budgets really.
I voted to retain first past the post in the referendum way back when. I do sometimes wonder how the world might look if that vote had gone the other way – I guess we’d probably have the same shitshow, lord knows most Western countries seem to have some version of it – but at least the tensions you’re referring to above might have been addressed.
I voted for AV+ but it’s not really proportional. Even Clegg didn’t like it but he thought it was a move in the right direction.
Very unsurprising AV+ didn’t take with the voting public. A very bad fudge that pleased nobody.
The problem with current politics is that the centre has been obliterated. All the actors have become extreme in one way or the other. Or are pandering towards extremists.
Well the LDs got a record number of seats, 50% more than they were targeting.
Same as it did fifty years ago.
AHHH, the Budget!!!
The most boring day of the year for a ten-year-old. Ten-year-old plays cricket, climbs trees, gets on bike to avoid it.
Now? AHHH, the Budget!!!
The most boring day in the world for a 60-year-old. Sixty-year-old sits in library working on a project, has a fish pie in the local restaurant, goes to the cinema.
What fish did they put in the pie? And what did you see at the cinema?
This is an important question actually. When my mother in law stays and we have fish pie, we must have cod or haddock, not simply “white fish.”
Well, quite…
I like my haddock yellow. And king prawns are essential!
Oh yes! Mother in law likes a hard boiled egg in her fish pie. I like a hard boiled egg but it’s not a fish and hard boiled egg pie.
Well, quite…
I made a prawn and egg curry a few days ago. Utterly lush.
An open sandwich with egg and prawn is rather fine, bit of mayonnaise too. We call it a räksmörgås.
Smoked haddock in kedgeree is a joy but avoid the fake yellow hue.
Completely agree.
The yellowing of smoked haddock is not needed…just smell it before you buy!
Retirees stop paying NI when they reach state pension age. The fiscal drag of freezing the tax allowances means we will be paying more tax as our pensions increase each year, but I doubt that I will notice. Every government seems petrified of tackling the triple lock, and look what happened to the so-called ‘winter fuel allowance’ when they dared to suggest some of didn’t need it (I don’t quite frankly), but that will need doing at some point. Add in free presciptions, bus passes and so on, and our paid for houses and we aren’t doing so badly. A revaluation for properties for some form of revised council tax seems a good idea.
The state pension is exempt from fiscal drag and over 65s can still have £20k tax free cash ISAs.
The state pension will soon reach the tax free allowance limit and any payment over will be subject to tax.
I’ve just had my winter fuel allowance payment, I found the ones that complained the most about not getting it were the ones using it to subsidise their winter holiday.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/pension-reeves-budget-income-tax-martin-lewis-b2874251.html
Although the state pension will rise, it will not be subject to tax, at least during this parliament.
Ah I hadn’t seen that, there was talk before of pensioners having to pay tax when they reached the threshold, thanks for the clarification Tigs.
In fairness, @hubert-rawlinson, those jets to Gstaad use a fair bit of fuel
Oh not somewhere cold though it had to be in search of the sun cos those old bones feel the cold.
@tiggerlion : Pensioners WILL pay tax on their OAP if they have any other income/pension. It will only be tax exempt if it is the sole form of income
Yep. I already do. I should mention that I am quite content to pay tax as I believe everyone who can should make a fair contribution. I want well funded public services and that needs to be paid for.
I don’t see why income derived from a state pension should be exempted from tax if the amount breaches the tax threshold then it should be taxed accordingly.
I agree but unfortunately our press would run headlines about how the government is stealing food from pensioners’ mouths etc.
I know but it will be interesting to see how they square not taxing some pensioners in breach of the tax threshold whilst taxing other pensioners who are in breach because of an income derived from a non-state source. Either the tax thresholds apply across the board without exemption or they can expect a very noisy row about basic fairness.
The easiest way is to not tax state pension at all and only tax other pensions if it takes you across the threshold, but much it will do if you draw the state pension.
The differential tax rates for people past retirement age is one of the issues I think possibly isn’t tenable longer term. At least not if this or any other government has to find ways of raising more tax . In addition, I can see little moral justification for my paying tax at a lower overall percentage rate than my son, whose income is far lower than mine.
One might also argue that the original rationale for treating NI differently to Income Tax doesn’t really stand up nearly 70 years after the 1948 act. Most people, men in particular weren’t expected to draw their pension for more than a few years back then. Ni was also supposed to entitle people to contributory workjng age benefits that weren’t available to people who hadn’t paid in. That’s not really the case now. The only thing a worker might get nowadays that other people wouldn’t is statutory sick pay and some maternity benefits.
Another tactic a Labour or leftist government might choose to pursue is to significantly increase the Investment Income Surcharge ( as we used to call it) abolished in 1984. This week’s budget introduced a 2% tax on top of the basic 20 or 40% for income from savings. In 1984 the tax on ‘unearned’ income was 15 in addition to the then tax rates.
I really can’t grasp why, as soon as I reached 66, I was entitled to about £12000 a year in the form of the state pension and at the same time, I stopped paying NI on my salary. As many of us, especially fairly affluent white collar workers, continue to work in their late 60s, surely the NI perk is unnecessary and costing the country money. I don’t even pay tax on the pension because I plough it all into AVCs in order to get maximum relief. I don’t know the actual statistics but, I can think of at least 3 other people i work with who are in this category so the same must be repeated across the country.
There is no good reason, it seems to me, that the state pension shouldn’t be treated as taxable income, if you’re in employment or deriving sufficient income from investments or savings.
And yes, if you’re working AND getting state pension, you should not be exempt from NI contributions on your employment earnings.
The state pension is treated as taxable income. If you’re working, and earning enough not to need it just yet, then you can simply put the equivalent amount into AVCs and avoid tax… of course when it’s eventually accessed from the resulting pension fund, it will be taxed… but, withe 25% tax free, it equates to 15% tax instead the 40% it would be if I wanted to spend it now.
I think I can say Alistair Green has summarised my reaction;
https://x.com/mralistairgreen/status/1727375243407499721
Hopefully I will have retired in 3 years time when anything that affects me comes in in 2028
As a retired person (I ceased work in 2016) reliant on state pension plus pension credit, housing benefit and full council tax exemption, this budget doesn’t appear to affect me at all.
I’m glad the pension triple lock has been maintained. It’s a life saver for pensioners with no other income from employment, savings or private pensions.
In previous years the winter fuel payment wasn’t something I actually needed, so I would give it away to one or other of the two homeless charities I like to support (Centrepoint and a local one, New Hope).
In 2025, things financial have been quite a bit tighter for me and, with a 12% rent increase in the offing and some hefty bills just paid, due to my car biting the dust in October and needing to be replaced, the WFP is coming in very handy indeed this year.