Budget live..anyone watching??

so far..........


Taxes and benefits
• Personal tax allowance raised from £4,895 to £5,035.
• Child element of child tax credit to be raised by 14% over the next three years. Child benefit to be increased on April 10 to £17.45.
• Child Trust Fund payments of £250 and £500 at age seven for those with existing accounts.
• 9% duty increase on packet of cigarettes from tomorrow, duty on spirits frozen.
• 4p on a bottle of wine and 1p on a pint of beer.
• Duty-free allowance for goods from outside the EU proposed to rise to £1,000.
• Exemption on stamp duty raised to £125,000 and inheritance tax exemption raised over the next four years from £275,000 this year to £325,000.

Duty on whisky, other spirits and cider was frozen.
"In anticipation of World Cup success this summer, I am freezing duty on champagne ... and on British sparkling wine."

Gordon Brown announced that vehicle excise duty (road tax) is to be scrapped on the least polluting cars on the road.
To finance this change he announced, as expected, a punitive rate of road tax on four-wheel-drive gas guzzlers - also known as Chelsea tractors.
From today, duty rates will be zero, £40 and then £100, £125, £150, £190 and a new band of £210 for new cars that are the most polluting, he told the Commons.
The effect of the changes is that the duty paid on 50% of all vehicles will be frozen.
At the same time, the Chancellor announced tax on petrol and diesel will be frozen until September.

BOOST to shared equity schemes designed to cut the cost of getting on to the housing ladder was announced by the Chancellor this afternoon.
Another £970m is to be made available for shared equity schemes to help an additional 35,000 first-time buyers.
A pilot scheme is to be launched which will require home buyers to be responsible for financing just 25% of the cost of a property, with housing agencies providing the balance.
The scheme is seen as particularly valuable in helping key workers find homes close to their places of work, such as schools and hospitals.

[Lotfi-dz]

Gas/electricity I heard the prices are going up

i didnt hear anything about that...

[Lotfi-dz]

I heard it on the news, gas and electricity prices are going put by 14 to 22%