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| Hum the theme to Jaws. Go on, dare you |
In amongst the heckling and shouting there was an autumn statement today and a response from Balls (first name Ed). I’ve not had a chance to look through it myself just yet because I spent the entire afternoon working on a consolidated cashflow statement but I did have something in my inbox from Hitachi Personal Finance who have summarised some of the salient points for families:-
- Married couples to gain a transferable married tax allowance being brought in during the 2015/16 tax year
- Energy bills cut by an average of £50* a year as the government will be rolling back energy levies and charges.
- The 2p-a-litre fuel duty rise which was scheduled for September will be scrapped, saving you £680 per year.
- National Insurance Contributions will be thrown out for workers under the age of 21.
- Free school lunches from September next year, for every child in reception, year one and year two at state-funded schools.
The married persons tax allowance has never actually been scrubbed- no government wanted to be the government to abolish it so they’ve gradually restricted the amount of it you can claim to 0%, which is pretty much the same as scrapping it really. Good to see something back there from a personal point of view. By the time the free school dinners come in our eldest will be too old for them. I do worry how schools will cope logistically with serving a hot meal to all those kids, I know ours will struggle.
Still, I’ll have a proper look at the numbers over the weekend, bearing in mind a lot of commentators are already saying George doesn’t have much in his locker to give out to the voters. Voters being people, not multinational companies who run by another set of rules obviously.
*which is still less than they’ve gone up by mind you