The Chancellor also announced a rise in the tax-free personal allowance to £11,500, a policy that will benefit an estimated 31 million workers across Britain.
Advertisement
To support pensioners and people saving for a home, a new lifetime Individual Savings Account (ISA) for under 40s will be introduced.
THE sugar tax on the soft drinks industry proved to be the headline grabbing measure unveiled by George Osborne in yesterday’s Budget.
“This matter was the subject of a pre-budget submission which, as is usual with all pre-budget submissions, was considered by the Minister for Finance in the context of the available resources”, said the spokesman.
There is also an increase in the “40p tax threshold” to £45,000 from next April and to £42,385 from next month.
There was no sugar coating the outlook for the British economy, which Osborne now forecasts to grow at two per cent in 2016, down from the previous estimate of 2.4 per cent. For basic rate taxpayers, capital gains will be reduced from 18 percent to just 10 percent.
The OBR said that GDP growth would be 2.4 per cent in 2016, 2.5 per cent in 2017 and 2.4 per cent in 2018.
Then the big red bars show what the new, lower growth figures did to that prediction – in short, they knocked a huge hole in it, through the United Kingdom having less taxes to collect (because we’re not so rich), and having to spend more (because we’re not so rich). There were also trimmed for the subsequent years through 2020. “We can choose to add to the risk and uncertainty or we can choose to be a force for stability”. Osborne said: “One of the biggest contributors to childhood obesity is sugary drinks”.
Paul Johnson, director of the IFS, said that Osborne will have to make further spending cuts of £3.5 billion to reach his target of clearing the gap between tax income and Government spending before 2019/20 – but he hasn’t yet said where that money will come from.
But it was the Chancellor’s move to cut business rates that will have caused concern at Bolton Town Hall.
RAC chief engineer David Bizley said: “Motorists will be relieved that the Chancellor has not used low fuel prices as an opportunity to raise duty on petrol and diesel to help reduce the deficit.
We did it!!! A profound move that will ripple around the world”, tweeted celebrity chef Jamie Oliver, who has led a high-profile campaign for action.
Advertisement
Delivering the annual budget statement to parliament, Osborne insisted the United Kingdom economy was growing faster than any other major advanced country and blamed the revisions to United Kingdom growth on a sluggish global economy.
