Countdown to the Budget

Preparing for small businesses to be royally screwed over again this budget. There are some rumours the VAT threshold might even go down to £20k. If that happens right after the flat rate scheme being basically pointless I expect a number of small businesses to shut up shop
 
jimjamuk said:
Preparing for small businesses to be royally screwed over again this budget. There are some rumours the VAT threshold might even go down to £20k. If that happens right after the flat rate scheme being basically pointless I expect a number of small businesses to shut up shop
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If the rumors of carrying over the ridiculous IR35 legislation from the public sector is to be believed, contracting as a whole could be killed off completely and then VAT will be irrelevant
 
Tinker round the edges of lots of big issues, with token measures to attempt to placate non-core voters. Set homebuilding targets which won't be met, and the government won't be held to account for because they'll be out of office before sufficient time has elapsed, or everyone forgets and lurches to the next issue of the day ;)
 
Be fun to see the Chancellor go full on "oh screw it" and do a Labour style promise everyone everything and leave someone in the future to pick up the pieces. Wipe student loans, a hospital on every corner, 100k new police, 20% increase in universal Credit, interest free 20 year loans for up to 20% of house price as a deposit, Nurses no longer have to pay any tax - that sort of thing. Then call an election 6 months later :D
 
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Sui said:
Personally, I'd rather they just switched Stamp Duty to the seller, then it's only really affecting people at the end of life compared to what there is now.
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Sellers would just raise the price accordingly to cover the extra cost.
 
If they lower stamp duty, I'll be slightly annoyed because we only completed on a house last week and the duty was a joke. We tried to delay completion until the the 23rd, but our buyers wouldn't play ball.

Sui said:
You say that, but a starter home in Brighton is no less than £270k, which is already a 27k deposit to get any form of decent interest rate on a mortgage. When you then add a further 3k on the stamp duty, it starts getting a little ridiculous about what is to be expected. Unfortunately due to family caring issues, we need to be within Brighton. Personally, I'd rather they just switched Stamp Duty to the seller, then it's only really affecting people at the end of life compared to what there is now.

It's all well and good them increasing the supply, but that will take years, when there is a need for something to happen much sooner than that.
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The problem with switching to the seller is it may well discourage people from downsizing. It would also penalise existing home owners twice.

They should start by abolishing stamp duty for first-time buyers. They should also consider moving to regional rates.

Ultimately, reducing stamp duty across the board isn't that helpful. The money saved is just put towards the deposit, further increasing prices.

In my mind, there isn't any solution to the "housing crisis", which doesn't create an equally sized crisis somewhere else.

If prices drop, developers stop building, owners stop selling, banks stop lending and buyers stop buying.
 
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The usual.

Taxes will go up.
Alcohol will go up.
Tobacco will go up.
Fuel will go up.
Fast food will go up.
Healthy food will go up.
Fresh air will go up.
Pensionable age will go up.
MP's wages will go up.
 
b0rn2sk8 said:
Not really sure I agree this, if you cant afford the stamp duty then buy a cheaper house.

They are better off scrapping all the FTB support and using the money (plus a shed load more) addressing the supply issue than given people a token tax break or cash payout no a savings account when they are spending £125k+. They probably need to juggle with the stamp duty thresholds a bit to stop really modest houses coming into it, but again addressing the supply will stem this problem. They could also address the whole leasehold thing that is sweeping the nation, there are also bigger issues in the rental sector also.

Any relief for FTB needs to have a hard cap based on income or property value to stop that that don't need it from getting support. It's the same as giving people £5k off a £100k Tesla car as well as a £28k Leaf....
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Yes, because people only solely consider the price of property when buying. It really isn't that simple is it?

Stamp duty for my upcoming (first) property is £6K, that could have been £6K less to borrow on the mortgage. It's a stinger when you consider people are already paying way over the odds for property because demand is greater than supply. House prices are increasing 12% YoY where I live and my wages or savings aren't increasing at that rate unfortunately.

There has to be short term solutions because the bigger issues you've identified aren't going to be fixed any time soon such as building more houses. Plus building more houses will just lead to more properties being sucked up by BTL ventures, that I guarantee. The SDLT increase on 2nd properties has not put off BTL enough, every new build development I've been to view over the last 6 months eventually start appearing in the Letting agent windows.
 
They'll want to get into surplus, because they know Labour will win the next general election, and they know Labour will put us back into deficit again, and that's how they'll win it back at the next general election.

So I'm not expecting much beyond what's already promised.
 
A stamp duty break for first time buyers would be very helpful if it starts April 2018, it should be right about when I'll be looking to complete on my first house should my plans go ok.
 
Burnsy2023 said:
A stamp duty break for first time buyers would be very helpful if it starts April 2018, it should be right about when I'll be looking to complete on my first house should my plans go ok.
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cant we have such a thing start in the next few months. hoping to put an offer in tomorrow. suppose its only 500 though.
Still sucks that stamp duty hasn't kept in line with house prices remotely.
 
Rumours has it 40% tax relief for higher rate pension contributions will go to give him £9billion to help fund brexit. Plus fuel duty increase on diesel after 7 years
 
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SpeedFreak said:
Will be an absolute mick take if so.
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No read a serious piece today at work. Leaks say Hammond is under pressure not to go that far and just drop the relief to 25% from 40%. All the directors made substantial contributions to their pensions today at work funnily enough.
 
Moses said:
Unsurprising, as a teacher :p. The point is that it could easily happen that nurses/police officers/prison officers get a good pay increase, but you don't... at what point your reaction would be...?
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I suspect they’ll divide and conquer throwing pay “rises” to the nurses and a couple of other areas but hold back from completely removing the pay freeze unilaterally. The Government will want to avoid a widespread public sector strike but as cheaply as possible.
 
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