Tax and NI wise you'll be about £2 a week better off. But if you you smoke drive a car or like a tipple then you wont. And then theres council tax, soaring fuel bills etc etc.

Chip

well i dont smaoke and rarely drink (thanks to the car) so im probably worse off after council tax and fuel bills

to remind you pete, i live in lincs but not lincoln itself, and nor do i work in a factory.

its a fair point pete, but again its been mentioned several times (and probably my bad for reacting to the biat), but your outlook on wages seems to be everyones on above & beyond the supposed £26,000 average. thats erm... bollocks

were not gonna agree on this as imho you have your head up your **** (not intended as insulting) and i dare say you have your opinions of me. so lets not waste our time argueing over an impossibility - us agreeing on something

You are over simplifying.

If the money truly was to help people who through no fault of their own are on low income, then I would have no problem paying even more tax than I do.

None what so ever.

But its not really about that. Its about funding massive overspend and massive waste. Its about funding massive beaurocratic inefficiency in local, regional and national government. Its about funding that mother of all feckups, the Civil Service. Its about funding, and I quote from today's herald newspaper an agreed £22,000 per annum allowance per MP for maintaining MP's London "second homes"

That's maintaining, incidentally, not purchasing.

Oh, and its about funding a war on terror that can never be won.

And thats what really hacks me off about additional "stealth" taxes.

I won't argue with that, Just imagine if Brown had bought lots of gold in 1999-2001 instead of sold it - He would have been able to cover the extra borrowing needed today.

I don't think we should "over" tax the better off, they should definitely pay more tax than someone earning a low wage., and in relative terms, we aren't - Compared to France germany etc we are a relatively low tax economy (although heading upwards).

Maybe something along the line of tax free up to £10K - Flat 30% up to £100K and then 50% over £100K

But those things you mention are a tiny, tiny percentage of your yearly tax bill.

But I agree cutting waste cannot be a bad thing.

Here's some pie charts showing you how tax is spent and where it comes from

Budget 2006 Summary Leaflet | Key Budget measures include



The fundamental thing to remember, is that you cannot have good public services and low taxes - It just doesn't work.


SO you make a choice as a nation, what do you want - Crap public services, and low tax, or good public services and pay more tax.

£57bn on "other expenditure"

That's the one I'd like to see broken down properly - as it is those charts are meaningless, other than to indicate that the UK is running at a loss.

How much of that quoted expenditure per sector could be slashed? How much actually goes directly to provide the services required?

£27bn on interest payments on the borrowing (borrowing which due to the ongoing deficit is only ever going to increase). Thats more than is spent on transport.

Its also "managed expenditure" Pete, not "actual" . Of course, I doubt we'll ever see the actual figures.

Its shambolic, and its run and managed by incompetents who probably couldn't make money on a donated prize raffle. If the UK were a private enterprise, it would have been put out of its misery by now.

Yes, we need tax to meet social expenditure, but to think we simply increasing tax to meet incresing levels of spend is to be naieve in the extreme.

Chucking more and more money at it isn't going to fix it.

A budget is only ever a target. One that is more often than not missed.

Although the article in the O.P looks bad for middle earners, the fact of the matter is, anyone earning over £15000 will be better off as of April due to the income tax rates going down to 20%.

The Salary Calculator

This calculator shows the difference between 07/08 and 08/09 salaries and like i said anyone earning over £15000 is better off.

A salary of £50k will give you a take home of £2931 this month, but £2955 next month. An increase of £24.

Thats surely a good thing

Only to be "offset" by carbon taxes.

That's a good site, can't believe the my daily expediture on income tax, that is frightening!

Ask yourself, do you get "value for your money?".

Pete...

I agree £40k isn't a great deal of money, it only equates to a monthly take home salary of £2440 per month, (£2280 if you're paying the usual 6% company pension scheme).

However this table reveals all..

http://www.statistics.gov.uk/downloa...07/tab7_7a.xls

A salary over £42900 pa puts a person in the UK's TOP 10% earners. Yes that means that 90% of the working population earn less

Some facts and figures....

The average UK salary is £24908pa, however the median salary which is the more important figure (50% lower/50% higher) is £19943

If we were to take London out of the equation, do you think the average and median salaries would drop? A lot? A little?

Here are some stats from the UK's largest cities...

London...........£39418 average/£27868 median
Birmingham......£23754 average/£20375 median
Manchester.....£28738 average/£23510 median
Newcastle.......£21887 average/£18441 median
Cardiff............£22892 average/£18862 median
Edinburgh........£28266 average/£21956 median

My original point, a salary over £42900 puts you in the UK's top 10%

Me, like everyone else on SN, wouldn't get out of bed for any less

Great!
I'll be £15 better of a month and the wife £25 better.

Think I'll go out and buy a gas guzzler. Not.


Still, better than a deficit but we've worked EXTREMELY hard to get that sort of money.

I don't think it was so much trolling as trying to underline the point of view of those who are genuinely hit hard by the measures in this budget. Not very impressive if you are earning less than £18K and you have had your 10% rate replaced with a 20% rate is it! And we are told this is a Labour government!

I did mention of course that the chickens are coming home to roost and we have not seen the end of it yet of course! Have you noticed the extra Nat Insurance that you will have to pay since you infer that £40K is peanuts as far as you are concerned? How do you personally feel about those who are significantly worsel off than yourself? What do you think of the pittance paid to pensioners these days compared to most other countries who actually give them due respect for the years that they worked and supported this country. Don't bother to make a meal out of the extra fuel allowance since it has not been increased as it should have been for years and actually should be nearer £400 in comparison to its value when first introduced. It has been announced that it is a one-off payment anyway!

Finally have you noticed the latest range of tax free allowances paid to that slimy bunch in the Palace of Westminster? All that money payable to set up their second homes in London! The sums that they were desperately trying to hide from the public but were optained under the "freedom of Information" Bill? What kind of a message does that send to the general public about our heroic MP's? Do you feel that they might just be a self seeking bunch of pillocks with their noses in the trough which is topped up with our taxes?

Les

Total public spending is expected to be around £552 billion for the coming year, around £9,200 for every man, woman and child in the UK. It is set to rise to £583 billion in 2007-08 and projected to rise to £610 billion in 2008-09.

9 grand for every man woman and child ?

Excellent, I would like to buy a VED Band A car with my 9k please. Doing my bit for the enviroment.

Madness when you see how much there is there, and a lot of the services you get day to day are probably not even included in that spending.

Well under the new income tax, I'm almost £100 a year worse off.

"Finally have you noticed the latest range of tax free allowances paid to that slimy bunch in the Palace of Westminster? All that money payable to set up their second homes in London! The sums that they were desperately trying to hide from the public but were optained under the "freedom of Information" Bill? What kind of a message does that send to the general public about our heroic MP's? Do you feel that they might just be a self seeking bunch of pillocks with their noses in the trough which is topped up with our taxes?"

That is the real problem with Gov. They don't truly care. They are just normal people with no real agenda to improve the country. There only agenda is to earn a living, put food on there plate and look after there families. Just like everyone else.

What that really means is they will do all they can to earn as much as they can while they can. We just think they give a **** because that is what they want everyone to believe.

Truth is it is easier to put up taxes! Everyone expects them to go up. The other choice (The Correct Choice) to reduce spending will not be as popular! Send the scroungers back to work and cut job wastage from the public sector.

Interesting that Tax spent on social support is similar to revenue brought in from Income Tax

Care to divulge what your annual wage is then?

Budget 2006 Summary Leaflet | Key Budget measures include

2006 Spend 552billion Tax 516billion Spending 36billion over

Budget 2007 Summary Leaflet | Key Budget measures include

2007 Spend 587billion Tax 553billion Spending 34billion over

Where taxpayers money is spent : Budget 2008

2008 Spend 618billion Tax 575billion Spending 43 billion over

But at the moment weve got high tax and crap public services.

Chip

For the balance between reduced tax and increased NI see post #10 on this thread.

Tell me about it, no in fact tell my wife !

Even those stats make the wages seem artificially high, do you have figures for, say, Merthyr Tydfil, Inverness and Birkenhead?