Budget 2016: what do you think?

Why should your preference take precedence over the wishes of others. You could take the time to write to the Pensions authority and ask them to change your frequency of payment.
There is a practise called “Budgetting”. Indulge.

I agree, but only in regard to the monies being spent on interfering in the way peoples in other countries choose to live their lives and the way they choose to change the way their lives are being affected by the Government(s) they, the citizens, are under the power of. The UK Government would do better to negotiate access to the assets of other Countries instead of trying to grab them by force.

Why penalise the public? Penalise the Drinks Manufacturers according to the volume of harmful sugars in the drinks.
More importantly, encourage the Parents of children with fat/obese Children to encourage their Children to exercise

If the manufacturers have to pay the tax they might not increase the price of the sugary drinks but spread the price rise over all their products, including the more healthy options. But I’m not sure how effective the tax will be because many are happy to pay for expensive ‘energy drinks’.

It is important to encourage parents of all children to cut down on sugar consumption, even if they are skinny. Very skinny kids sometimes become obese adults.

Exactly, we should be weaning people off sugary, highly profitable, drinks – including the so-called energy drinks like RedBull- for harming their health, and pocket. Forget the marketing, you don’t need them.

Hopefully the tax will appear on their products; I do not know the legality of spreading the cost but doubt it could work.

I am not disappointed by the decision not to increase road fuel duty – in rural areas this is of vital assistance to people who have no alternative form of transport. It also helps small businesses to keep their costs down and I think the economy will be no worse off in the long run.

Every time there was a rise in fuel duty and prices the local authorities in rural areas were pressed to raise the maximum permitted taxi fares. Keeping the duty at the same level removes this threat.

Paula -you are close to my heart an ethical -humane and genuinely nice person !! I just wish more of the population were like you .

And CGT doesn’t apply only to residential property but to most assets that appreciate so this really is a golden give-away and could potentially enrich lots of people. Presumably, and I haven’t heard or read this part of the Budget speech, the thinking is that if gains are relieved of high taxes it will improve the liquidity of capital and generate more worthwhile investment. It might, or then again it might not – it’s a bit of an experiment.

From what I heard on the news today, there is no planned “cut in the money for the disabled”, indeed total expenditure is forecast to rise, but the redistribution of the money through the PIP asessment process will leave significant numbers worse off although other recipients deemed more needy, and people with new entitlements, will be better off. Ever since the Community Charge [poll tax], Conservative governments have always come a cropper on how to allocate welfare resources and, in their desire to improve equitability and rationality, always manage to leave a needy group exposed and deprived. The Spare Room Subsidy [“bedroom tax”] was another classic example. I blame the civil service really – they should spot these pitfalls at an early stage and steer the government away from them. The minor amount of money involved is usually out of all proportion to the distress and outrage caused, and the dogmatic intransigence when they apprehend their blunder only serves to compound the hurt. Whether we like it or not, we have to recognise that certain state benefits have become untouchable; years ago galloping inflation could be used to quietly smooth away these ‘anomalies’ but the government being saddled today with minimal inflation levels needs to develop a more sophisticated and sensitive way of managing these aspects. The theory behind it is sound in a philosophical sense but its practical application is crude and uncaring. It is bad politics to leave detriment and can usually be avoided.

T Burgess – The politicians certainly have to take responsibility for creating this points-based Personal Independence Payments scheme which was undoubtedly developed in the Department of Work & Pensions under Ian Duncan-Smith’s direction. In principle I can see some merit in it, but they probably did not explain it properly to, or consult on it with, the representatives of disabled people in order to understand the consequences of introducing such a formulaic method of determining benefit payments. Thinking up things like this is what the DWP does and is there for. My criticism of the civil service is that when the scheme was wheeled round to the Treasury for implementation under the 2016 Budget somebody should have analysed it a lot more carefully and noticed that the Chancellor would be walking into a mire if he pushed it forward in the raw and detrimental state in which it had been prepared. Perhaps the mandarins were so fixated technically on achieving their fiscal and budgetary objectives that they could not see the human side of the measure.

A few hours later . . .

The back-tracking has already started and I cannot see this proposal proceeding now. The education secretary has apparently described it as merely “a suggestion” which is disingenuous to say the least. This was indeed a very well worked-out policy that was delivered as part of the Budget and ministers were publicly defending it during the rest of Budget day.

The basic rate tax threshold will be at or above the state retirement pension level. Keeping 80% of any extra income is not a bad result surely – it’s the best I can remember in my lifetime.

If you were contracted out you would have been paying reduced NI contributions.

Pat – Are you saying you don’t have a works pension? If you do have one it might put you in a better financial position than just having the state retirement pension. Maybe you were not told that you were paying your state pension contributions at the contracted-out rate, or perhaps you did not realise what that would mean when you reached retirement age.

With the state pension scheme there is no direct link between the amount paid in and the pension paid out in later life; its the contribution record that counts and it would seem that you have a full contribution record, albeit at the contracted-out rate, so you should be getting the maximum state pension that your circumstances allow.

If you are not receiving your occupational pension you should chase that up as a matter of urgency.