I am sure by now you have seen a great deal of coverage of yesterday’s Budget on the news and in the papers, however behind the headlines and figures on growth and spending I wanted to highlight the issues that will affect you.
Key measures include:
- £700 a year better off due to decreased income tax. Continuing to raise the personal allowance threshold on income tax to £10,000 by April 2014, a year earlier than planned. Increased already introduced by this Government have lifted over 2.4 million people out of paying income tax altogether and will make everyone £700 a year better off.
- Fuel Duty Increase scrapped again. A further scrapping of the proposed fuel duty increase bought in by the last Government, meaning every time someone fills their tank it will be £7 cheaper than it would have been under Labour. This will make a real difference to so many families, individuals and businesses in Watford.
- National Insurance Bill cut for Business to boot employment. Watford companies next April will see their National Insurance bill cut by up to £2000. That means they’ll be able to take on 4 people full time on minimum wage without any increase in their NI bill.
- Price of a Pint goes down. The beer duty escalator has been scrapped and in addition one penny will be coming of the cost of a pint.
- Help for new homeowners. People looking to buy a new home will get support from a £3.5 billion fund which will help provide up to 20% of the equity for anybody wanting to buy a newly built home. From January 2014 the Government will provide a new guarantee to help lenders offer more people 80- 05% loans to value mortgages.
- Deficit down, employment rises, infrastructure boost. Over all the Government has now cut the deficit by a third; for every job lost in the public sector, 6 more have been created in the private sector and we are set for a huge increase in spending on vital infrastructure projects
Today’s Budget will make a real difference to the amount of money that people are taking home and the amount they have to spend. It also shows that whilst the Government has had to make some difficult decisions to fix the economic mess we inherited, the Chancellor is listening and acting on the issues that people care most about.
I would be interested to hear your views or questions on today’s Budget, so please do not hesitate to get in contact.