Budget 2010: Your reactions
Wednesday 24th March 2010, 2:21PM GMT.
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Shropshire folk have been giving their reactions to today’s Budget speech.
Philip Meade
Farming industry specialist Philip Meade, at Davis Meade Property Consultants, from Oswestry, said: “Early on he mentioned about discouraging protectionism, which we hope will apply to agricultural industry as this may free up the market for farm products.
“Increase in Stamp Duty to five per cent for houses over £1 million could impact on farmers if farms come under this with the purchase of a £1 million farm now incurring a substantial £50,000 Stamp Duty Tax charge but will have to wait and see the details on that.
“The IHT threshold is frozen but nothing, thankfully, has been said about Agricultural Property Relief so farmers who have taken advice on this should be able to reduce their IHT burden and still be able to pass on their farms to the next generation. The increase in tax on cider will affect cider makers.”
John Ellis
John Ellis, landlord of the Crown Inn in Oakengates, said: “The Chancellor said he supports free trade but he has still made no effort to remove the VAT subsidy to supermarkets on alcohol at pocket-money prices.
“He postponed some of the fuel duty increase but kept increases on alcohol and tobacco, while hammering cider producers by inflation plus 10 per cent which will have an effect on fruit farmers and cider producers in The Marches.
“This encourages transfer of alcohol purchases from pubs to subsidised supermarkets, thereby reducing his VAT revenue.”
Nick Tart
Shropshire estate agent Nick Tart said: “The increase in the threshold for stamp duty land tax to £250,000 for first time buyers is welcomed and will without doubt encourage transactions, particularly as the average house price in Shropshire is only a little over £200,000 making an average saving of just over £2,000.
“However it should be born in mind that first time buyers tend to be active in lower price ranges where the saving will be proportionately less.
“It was not made clear whether the Chancellor is in effect scrapping the current 1 per cent rate of duty up to £250,000 and that the existing rate of 3 per cent will continue to prevail above that figure.
“It was not revealed as to how a first time buyer will be ³identified² and perhaps thought should be given to those couples in new relationships who may not comply for the exemption.
“The increase in stamp duty land tax for sales over £1,000,000 will not have a particularly great effect in the County but does overall in the UK help to balance the give-aways lower down the scale.”
David Walker
David Walker, of Turner Peachey Chartered Accountants in Shrewsbury, said:
“As expected, the Chancellor¹s Budget speech focused on the wider economy and the need to sustain recovery, rather than detailed tax measures. Whoever wins the election, the next Budget is almost certain to be very different.
“The changes to stamp duty land tax show that this will never return to the single rate tax of old. It¹s now a progressive tax; the richer you are, the higher the rate you will pay. Unless there any specific relieving measures, property based businesses, such as residential homes and hotels, will also be affected.
“A lot of tax planning for small businesses and their owners revolves around their investment decisions and succession plans. The Chancellor’s doubling of allowances in these areas should help SMEs greatly.”
For more Budget reaction and analysis see today’s Shropshire Star
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The star goes to Nick Tart, the son, of one of their own for a view – yet again the Star prove that they are a Tory rag! Helped by Lord Ashcroft and his ‘wrap around’ around the Jorunal for the tory MP hopefuls. The star picks and choices the stories they print.
on the budget – will Shropshire MPs back the agreement that will ensure that those people who dodge tax like Ashcroft will now need to pay it?
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Whats his beef with Cider..
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Well dont see a problem with much of it , who ever wins the next ellection will chop change what ever they wish.As for whats wrong with cider spencer well if you dont know……..
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More New Labour spin and lies.
Come clean and do it for the Country not some gruby self serving political party.
Inherited a golden goose and squandered the lot!
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Heather if you are that bothered on the Stars reporting why do you read it ??? Why not stick to your daily Mirror !
I disagree and find the Shropshire a great read on all the items it reports on including there report on the budget .
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If ever we wanted a more stark indication that this shower of idiots have lost any semblance of a political party then their snide, juvenile comment re “agreements with Grenada, Dominica and Belize” must surely be it. The Labour equivalent of Lord Ashcroft is Lord Paul who has massive assets in India. He wasn’t just made a “Lord”, he was made a Lord and was also given an extremely prestigious seat on the Privy Council. Now, why I wonder did the other idiot Darling not make an agreement with India and announce that in his budget.
This budget could all have been said in 5 minutes, it took over an hour with 99.9%r of it being spin, lies, deceit and sheer, pure politicking.
Anyone who cannot have seen through this needs to get something seen to.
Perhaps Heather can tell us why Darling didn’t mention any agreement with India to tie up Lord Paul. Perhaps she could also tell us how much income the government will be getting from non’doms from Belize and how much it will cost to collect.
Yes. some people support the motley shower of Labour (note, since they were taken over by the Communist Unite Union, we should no longer call them “New”) which says as much about them as the party they adore.
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whats all the fuss about?????
the really budget comes after the election thats when the tax goes up. i hope shrewsbury becomes labour, this town has been ruined by the tories.
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Could you please ask Bottler Broon to stop smiling! It’s frightening my children, they are 25 and 22!!!
A bucket more of New Labour spin
What have we done to deserve them?
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nope, please enlighten me on the Cider issue oh great oracle of knowledge..
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Mr ‘Churchill’ may get lucky and get a Labour MP as the tories have ‘ruined’ Shrewsbury? Can’t comment, don’t live there. As for another Labour Government. You’d have to have been in a coma for the last 13 years to think, in all seriousness, that Labour should continue to run this country. And I do live here.
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This budget has nothing for me then again none ever do if you are in the middle income bracket! whilst I am disillusioned Labour I cannot see Cameron and Osborne doing any better? they are both more into spin than Tony Blair
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alastair darling is a complete chump, he has mistaken white cider from real cider, he has put a special tax on herefordshire, devon and somerset, their business’s and their inhabitants, by putting an extra 13% tax on cider, albeit the 400 small cidermakers are exempt. this is of no help to westons and bulmers etc of herefordshire and to the large cider makers in the southwest.
white cider made from fruit concentrate and highly prized by binge drinkers who shop in offlicences and tesco, because of it’s strength should have had 255 tax added and all real ciders should have been taxed at inflation only.
when will these anti rural labour politicians learn about country traditions. i was predicting a labour majority of 18. thanks to a scottish towny scottish chancellor, their majority has plummetted to 15 and the lib dems will make hay or cider at the expense of the tories in rural areas.
black mark darling, will you never learn. rest of the budget not bad, but put real cider back to inflation only when you are returned!!
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Atcham jack is spot on. Darling has shown just how out of touch with the real world he is by taxing to death one of the last great English institutions..
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Stamp duty clawed in on properties over a million pounds equals half of what Real Madrid paid for Christiano Ronaldo. Big deal. And the bankers, sorry spelling mistake again, will know every evasive trick in the book. It was a sponge fist budget in an iron glove. Next year? I’d start looking at flights out now.
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Stuart,
Your description of Unite as ‘communists’ is as ever a massive and quite risible exaggeration.
Are each and everyone of the BA cabin crew fighting to retain their terms and conditions of employment against the vindictive and bullying Willie Walsh to be dismissed as ‘communists’? Come off it!
As for Unite funding the Labour party, so what? The Labout party was founded by trade unions and has a proud history of association with the union movement. Any funding is provided via a political fund, from which individual members have the right to opt out, so it’s entirely democratic and open.
Contrast this mechanism with the donations by big business to the Tory party and you’ll find no such democracy. Do the small shareholders or employees of large companies get any veto on some of the company profits being donated to Cameron? I think not.
The fact that the Labour party are currently somewhat at odds with Unite is a further indication of the open and democratic relationship between the two.
You’ll rarely see the CBI differing with the Tory party or vice-versa – both know too well who butters each other’s bread!
There was never going to be very much that could be done in this budget. As a proportion of GDP, we had debt of 43% or so (historically manageable, and reached several times in the last 40 or so years), but this was directly pushed up to over 70% by the bankers’ recession. Still not the highest figure we’ve seen – it was at over 100% in the late ’50s – but nevertheless a high figure.
Don’t forget, the Tories would have let the banks fail, hitting the savings and jobs of many more ordinary people, and their only published budgetary plans have been to promise cuts in inheritance tax, (which benefits the wealthiest most) corporation tax (which benefits the wealthiest entirely), and to promise swingeing cuts in essential public services, leading to yet more working people being thrown out of work. Much as the readers of the Daily mail might get their kicks from the idea of public sector workers losing their jobs, there’s a ‘double whammy’ (to quote a failed Tory!) – we lose public services and also have to pick up the benefits bill for those thrown out of work.
I listened to Osborne’s budget response yesterday on the radio. Not once did he make mention of the damage caused by his friends the bankers – it’s quite clear where his and his party’s interests lie, as they always have done…
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Peter #15
It is Bliar and Bottler Broon who sucked up to the Bankers, the Nu Labour 13 years of waste and tax have done the real damage. I went to a Price Waterhouse Coopers seminar on the budget on Thursday.
The real fact of what Broon has done to the golden goose he inherited is frightening.
Labour are masters of lies and spin and I am amazed our dumbdown society believe it all!!
We need a new political party who serve the Country not themselves.
Bring on the revolution of wealth creators, not the useless parasites.
I am fortunate I have the scope to leave this sinking isle.
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Drew,
Still waiting for some facts to support your arguments…
I’m assuming the sort of party you have in mind might be the sort that judges people by the colour of their skin or their religious beliefs.
I’m afraid far too many of the ‘wealth creators’ you talk about are far too busy shipping jobs out of the UK to cheaper locations to bother helping with our economic difficulties.
And I’m sure many of the ‘useless parasites’ the doctors, nurses, police, firemen, street cleaners, job centre workers, tax officials, and the many, many other public servants who do their best to provide services for us all, will be very glad to see the back of you.
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