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Really clever to scrap the 10% band which will affect low income workers like me. Yes absolutely brilliant, Nick.
And no, tax credits won't compensate me or anyone else without kids.

And then there's small businesses - equally shafted. Why should they be further penalised when it's hard enought to compete with big business as it is?!

This budget is a straightforward attack on small earners and small businesses.

I can't believe the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ "pundits" seem to be missing this. Biaised ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ - alive and kicking.

I may not be an economist, and this statement may single me out as an idealist, but every budget since 1997 has been robbing Peter to pay Paul (or maybe moving deckchairs on the titanic), yet I seem to be worse off every time! I have had decent salary increases during the last 4 years, but I seem to be taking home pretty much the same as always!

I crave the day when someone comes up with something genuinely new. Or at least genuinely socialist so that my massive tax bill does some real tangible good.

Which is the best source of a simple [!] bullet point list of public spending/taxation comparisons, by category, between different countries. e.g. Are we spending more on health than France per head 1]absolutely 2] as a proportion of GDP? Are we taxed more on alcohol than France and,if so, from where does France make that up in relation to us?

I don't understand something. By lowering the basic tax rate and scrapping the 10p rate does that mean a worker earning around £13000 is better or worse off?

Worse! Anyone earning under c£18,500 will find themselves paying MORE tax, whilst anyone earning over that will find themselves paying up to c£400 less tax.

Julie - the pundits seem determined to ingore the fact that they will be worse off. Add council tax into the mix and we are very much worse off.

I would only get about £90 in tax credits, and on a very low income.

There is no question that I am worse off.

#1 Julie:

unless Gordon Brown balances it making substantial changes to N.I thresholds, workers on a basic salary of £13k will be worse off by about £110 a year.

Someone on £13000 will be worse off by about £100 a year.

Another budget that does nothing for the pensioner who has a little put by, who have saved all their lives to enjoy a reasonable retirment. I dont see pensioners seeing Gordan Brown as an elected P.M. P.S to Gordan forget pensioner power at your peril.

Don't forget, stamp duty limits unchanged! Page 283 of the budget mentions this, brings in a tidy sum extra as prices go up.

By funding central government tax changes out of abolishing empty rates he may be acting in anticipation of more empty buildings as the economy turns down. It will make buy-to-let commercial investors think twice!

Combined with the complex changes to capital allowances and industrial buildings allowance, this seems to be an attack on property owners and occupiers, especially those with manufacturing or process activities.

He can't act without increasing complexity - he seems to have a psychological problem that causes him to fiddle with rules as well as his fingers

Abolition of the 10p is a tax on the poor singleton, especially if not eligable for tax credits. It is effectively a 10p tax on the working poor, to keep the middle income folk happy.

you have not factored in the loss of 2% tax relief on pension contributions - I think that will more than make up the 1 billion pounds. He is as always a deceitful bandit.

er nick- I believe you said on the 6 o'clock news there is NO elections coming up, so why a tax cut? You seem not to know about the forthcoming Scottish Parliament & local elections in May. If the current polls are to be believed Labour is about to be ousted from power in Scotland by the SNP & the act of union unravelled. Don't you think that might have something to do with Tax cuts ?????????

Budgets are getting more and more like the marketing of financial products: we are being promised the benefits further and further into the future. In the old days, budget measures announced in March would be implemented in April the same year, not in three years time. Personally I think it's dishonest of the chancellor (sorry that should be disingenuous) to go before the people and his party claiming to be handing out tax cuts when he's doing nothing of the sort.

Clever? No Nick it is not. There is nothing big, nor clever about reducing one tax and upping a load more to make up for it. A really clever thing would be to be prudent and wise with taxation and expenditure, something Brown fails on both counts spectacularly. He over taxes, over borrows and over spends on waste. Scrapping the 10p band is naked shameless robbery from those least able to afford it. How can you be taken in by such obvious in-your-face duplicity? Are you really so foolish? Or are have you been offered a lucrative advisor/PR position under a Brown premiership? Sorry Nick, but everyone in the northern industrial town where I live can see through Brown's cynical, deceptive and discraceful ploy. How can't you?

We will remember this awful budget at the next election.

Dear Nick

Let us pray Scottish Voters severe the link with the Labour Party, because under Blair and Brown, this country has become the sewerage of Europe, our Culture is nose diving, Freedom of Speech no longer exists, and we live in a Police state in all but name,any one who supports what labour have done should join the Effluent dump, I am not BNP, but i have to agree this country, needs an English leader, to Put England back on the Map, just like the French their nationalist party cries out for Le Penn, WE NEED NATIONALS IN POWER.