The Budget

[northwichcat]

There weren't many big announcements in today's budget. The main ones were £2bn extra for social care in next 3 years and self-employed workers to pay higher NI as Philip Hammond said being self-employed shouldn't have financial benefits. The latter has already been criticised by some people as self-employed don't get benefits like sick pay or parental leave.

Slight mistake on the BBC site currently as they mention £250m of funding for Scotland, £120m of funding for NI but just £200 for Wales!

£270m for new technologies such as robots and driverless vehicles (which Philip Hammond joked about the main opposition party knowing a lot about.) Also £113m to address pinch points on roads.

BBC Summary - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-39203784

 

[Temple Meads]

£270m for new technologies such as robots and driverless vehicles

Investment in putting people out of work? Lovely.

 

[northwichcat]

Investment in putting people out of work? Lovely.

If we didn't invest in them then ones developed in other countries would come over here and take the jobs, which would annoy the British robots and lead to robots forming their own political party.

 

[AlterEgo]

The Chancellor also said that he would be legislating at the earliest opportunity to allow consumer enforcement bodies, such as the Competition and Markets Authority, to ask the courts to order civil fines against companies that break consumer law. This will enable consumer bodies to take tough action against firms that mislead or mistreat consumers.

 

[Dave1987]

If we didn't invest in them then ones developed in other countries would come over here and take the jobs, which would annoy the British robots and lead to robots forming their own political party.

Or they could put in legislation to stop those jobs being lost unless the people who were losing their jobs were retrained and thereby not become a burden on the state. You are going to have people in their late 40's, 50's and early 60's who are made redundant by automation who are too young to retire but considered too old to be retrained. What happens to them? Will the Government pay for them to attend college or university to gain new skills? Or punish them for the audacity of becoming unemployed through automation?

 

[Barn]

Or they could put in legislation to stop those jobs being lost unless the people who were losing their jobs were retrained and thereby not become a burden on the state. You are going to have people in their late 40's, 50's and early 60's who are made redundant by automation who are too young to retire but considered too old to be retrained. What happens to them? Will the Government pay for them to attend college or university to gain new skills? Or punish them for the audacity of becoming unemployed through automation?

The trouble with protectionist bans is that you cripple the whole economy.

By banning technological progress you make things more expensive for everyone, reduce consumers' and businesses' buying power, make the UK less competitive for global business, and end up losing more jobs than you were trying to save in the first place.

I agree that thought needs to be given to adult education for people changing careers in their middle years though.

 

[HLE]

The dividend allowance being reduced from 5k to 2k was interesting. It puts an end to small business owners being able to put 11k through as wages and 5k as dividends without paying a penny in income tax.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

The dividend allowance being reduced from 5k to 2k was interesting. It puts an end to small business owners being able to put 11k through as wages and 5k as dividends without paying a penny in income tax.

Bear in mind though that, in part, that dividend allowance exists because those small business owners will have paid corporation tax instead, so it's not really correct to imply those business owners don't pay any tax on that 16K. There's an unfortunately double-taxation anomaly where, if you own a business and run it as a limited company, you have to pay corporation tax on the profits you make, and then you separately have to pay income tax on the same profits when you transfer the money from the company to yourself.

Up until now, differing tax rates and allowances has meant that, with some work, it's still usually been possible to arrange things so as a business you pay slightly less tax+NI than an employee earning the same amount would, although I'm not sure if that's still the case.

 

[Domh245]

https://twitter.com/ed_miliband/status/839520671768117248

Not so much.....

I've ruled out raising VAT. Why won't Ed Miliband rule out raising National Insurance contributions? Labour always puts up the Jobs Tax.

 

[Barn]

https://twitter.com/ed_miliband/status/839520671768117248

This was a bit of an own goal for the Conservatives, especially as it doesn't really raise very much.

 

[underbank]

The dividend allowance being reduced from 5k to 2k was interesting. It puts an end to small business owners being able to put 11k through as wages and 5k as dividends without paying a penny in income tax.

The company will have paid corporation tax on the profits out of which the £5k dividend is paid though. (Dividends are paid out of taxed profits, not a pre-tax deduction).