Well, that was mostly a non-event. Apart from George frothing and spitting as he spoke, he really could have done with wearing a bib, causing Ed Balls and Ed Miliband to spend a lot of their time ducking and diving to avoid the spittle flying from one side of the house to the other.
There is a sop to house buyers with extra help for not only all first time buyers but all those wishing to move up the housing ladder (on houses less thatn £600K - most of us - ed). It will be interesting to see whether or not this will have any effect, as the devil will be in the detail, and getting the government involved in house purchases in any way would seem to be an opportunity for an increase in form filling and might even make the system grind to a complete stop.
What has been offered to small businesses (SMEs), is an Employment Allowance, a rebate of £2,000 on their Employers National Insurance contributions, that is only one amount per company. This will be very valuable for very small companies wanting to hire their first worker, as it will wipe out the entire amount of Employers NI for workers with a salary up to £22K. But this is a pre-announcement and will only be from April 2014 (it is never from tomorrow, unless it is a tax rise, when it is usually midnight tonight - ed)
What is significant, is that from April 2014 (another year to go - ed) is that the income tax threshold is to be increased to £10,000. This means that you would be able to earn £10,000 before you pay any income tax, but you would still be paying National Insurance of £288.
What I like about this and they need to go further still, is that it is a further move to getting all those that are on low wages, and are deemed poor by the Government out of paying tax altogether.
No comments:
Post a Comment