Friday 23 August 2024

Wasn't Me

I thought that the New Government would get around a year to blame any problems on the last Government and when the Chancellor, Rachel Reeves, came out almost immediately and said that the economy she had inherited from the Conservatives was worse than she imagined and there was a £22bn shortfall it was expected.
That she then published the Official figures from the Office of Budget Responsibility to show that the UK bought in £327bn in taxes but spent £406bn to back up her 'It wasn't me, it was them' mantra then it  
drove home that we may well be facing a pretty grim budget on the horizon.
Having already made a manifesto pledge to not increase Income Tax, National Insurance or VAT then it is some of the other taxes we should be looking at for where the extra revenue will be coming from but
as it is either bring more in or pay less out, there are a few options.
The Conservatives went for the pay less out option and spent over a decade slashing and hacking at everything which worked as well as it sounded as almost every Government Department is now under-staffed and places like the NHS are seriously underfunded and waiting times are at the worst in NHS history.
Labour then seem to be looking at the bring more in option and Capital Gains tax seems to be the favourite as it was mentioned before the Election and the Conservatives tinkered with it to bring down the amount you can 'Gain' before paying tax but Labour are apparently looking at making the tax rate the same as the income tax rate.
Inheritance Tax and Pension Relief are also up for discussion which would effect 1.4% of the population in the case of the Inheritance Tax and anyone paying tax at a higher rate in the case of the Pension Relief which wouldn't necessarily scare to many people and would raise taxes but not for the vast majority.
I don't envy Rachel Reeves having to balance the books or how she will do it but it does seem quite prudent to front load the bad news when you can still blame the former Government when the memory of Liz Truss trashing the economy is fresh in the mind.   

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