What George Osborne has done today in Westminster, is akin to being a wolf in sheep's clothing.
On the one hand, he's helped everybody, especially the low paid, by raising the allowance, the starting point at which you earn tax, to £9,205 from April 2013, but he'spenalised the middle income earners, by lowering the point where they start paying 40% down to £41,450. And the rich get the bonus of having the over £150,000 tax rate lowered to 45%.
He's hurting pensioners by freezing their personal allowances until the personal allowance catches up to it.
Child Benefit will be kept by people earning up to £50,000, and there will be a sliding scale, so that when you reach £60,000, you get no child benefit. But that still means two people, earning £49,000 each could get the child benefit, whilst one earning £61,000 would not. That inherent unfairness has not been addressed.
Corporation Tax, will get reduced to 24% in April 2013 and down to 22% in April 2014.
Adding a 7% stamp duty for houses worth over £2,000,000 is one thing, and I do like the idea that any corporations paying for houses over £2,000,000 will pay 15%, that closes that little loophole.
Unfortunately, this is a budget that rewards the super rich, and penalises middle income earners, families and pensioners. It has been dressed up as fair, and it is clearly anything but.
No comments:
Post a Comment