Post Election Budget July 8th 2015

overthefence · Jul 5, 2015

We are starting to hear a bit more around the budget coming up on wednesday, one of the big new ones is changing the soical / Council tenants rents for higher earners, effectively meaning they will be charged market rates not subsidised rents.
I am sure some will disagree but surely the majority will see this as a good idea.

http://news.sky.com/story/1513430/crackdown-on-rich-council-house-tenants

Given the lead by Labour in the general election on Inheritance tax, it was not hard to see the tories taking some sort of action.

http://news.sky.com/story/1513055/tories-set-to-cut-inheritance-tax-in-budget

Further cuts to the civil service are expected as well but we will see what changes to the tax thresholds are planned over the life of parliment as he makes good on his commitement to increase the 40% threshold to £50k by 2020 and to take the starting point of tax up as well.

The big question though has to remain is how they fund the NHS to the levels suggested in the election and what that means to the overall benefit system.

Budget will pave way for up to 100,000 Civil Service job cuts - Telegraph

madhatter007 · Jul 5, 2015

As opposed to giving a much bigger subsidy under the right to buy?

All this policy will do is make our Council estates even bigger dumping grounds and the problems that come with that.

It's a fallacy anyone subsidises council tenants as the housing revenue account has to be balanced.

D 8 RCS · Jul 5, 2015

It will be the usual standard post election Budget where the lowest income families will suffer the most and of course anyone on benefits.
The benefit bashing has been justified by the endless stream of benefit scroungers programmes, that have attempted to perceive everyone on benefits as low life leeches that drain the finances of the decent lower and middle paid workers. When in fact they will also be included in these cuts because "benefits" include things like Child Tax Credits and Working Tax Credits.
The one thing that won't be addressed that would make any of the "cuts" savings appear miniscule will be the "Tax Evasion" by the huge Multi-Nationals and Conglomerates.

D 8 RCS · Jul 5, 2015

madhatter007 said:
As opposed to giving a much bigger subsidy under the right to buy?

All this policy will do is make our Council estates even bigger dumping grounds and the problems that come with that.

It's a fallacy anyone subsidises council tenants as the housing revenue account has to be balanced.

As you say it is complete fallacy that council tenants are subsidised as the large majority of tenants end up paying enough rent to have bought their homes several times over.
The Right To Buy needs to be abolished because it is only reducing the amount of social housing.
Buy to Let and Private Rental Prices need to be addressed, because this is causing huge drains on Housing Benefits with highly inflated "market place" rental prices particularly in the "lower end" priced properties. It is also these Buy to Let mortgages that are marginalising the market for first time buyers and making it harder for them to get mortgages.
If they really wanted to increase home buyers then they need to make Buy to Let mortgages much harder and expensive to get and to make home buyers mortgages more accessible by introducing 30, 40, 50 or even 60 year mortgage terms with low deposits. This would make payment much easier and affordable and the chances of repossession more unlikely.................However, this will never happen because it would give power to the "lower" classes and would mean they would no longer just accept their fate of paying more for less and doing as they are told.

overthefence · Jul 5, 2015

D 8 RCS said:
The one thing that won't be addressed that would make any of the "cuts" savings appear miniscule will be the "Tax Evasion" by the huge Multi-Nationals and Conglomerates.

This was announced in the March budget and does take time, it is all well and good to base big corporations like we have with HSBC and then they leave our shores and end up losing a lot of UK jobs and income.
There is a fine balance and a tricky path forward.

D 8 RCS said:
As you say it is complete fallacy that council tenants are subsidised as the large majority of tenants end up paying enough rent to have bought their homes several times over.
The Right To Buy needs to be abolished because it is only reducing the amount of social housing.

Bit of a contradiction here potentially, you say that tennants buy there house many times over and when there is redress for this that is a bad thing.
So what do we do, charge rent until it covers the original mortgage and then let people live rent free.
This was not the point of the policy note anyway, it is saying those paying low rent on higher incomes will now pay a market rate.
Yes I totally do though agree the buy to let is creating a unsustainable future for UK housing and making it hard for everyone to buy a house.
That is true of low and high earners.
The avergae price in my area is over £280k that is a deposit along of £30k before fees etc

The policy aims to give councils more money and balance the books better, whilst yes revenue is balanced it is not balanced by department so low rents mean the closure of libraries high parking charges etc, so surely this have to be a good thing.

D 8 RCS said:
lower and middle paid workers. When in fact they will also be included in these cuts because "benefits" include things like Child Tax Credits and Working Tax Credits.

The child benefit was cut for those earning £60 or more as individuals and not families, this thus did not hit the lower classes.
The loss of Child Tax Credits and Working tax credits are in some part negated by the increase in the tax free allowances.

Him Her · Jul 5, 2015

Well, where to start? Whatever your stance on welfare recipients it's an unaffordable situation. The bill continues to grow unchecked and that's as much a feature of an aging population as anything else.

As for housing, people wanted stricter banking regulation, they got it. One of the knock-on effects is fewer people meet the requirements for a mortgage. Buy-to-let landlords meet the requirements. Demand for housing is down because there are fewer buyers, therefore fewer houses get built and prices rise making the problem worse.

A lot of the things people complain about are interlinked but boil down to one thing really, no spare cash without borrowing. Of course, you could scratch the HS2 vanity project, that would help!

D 8 RCS · Jul 5, 2015

overthefence said:
This was announced in the March budget and does take time, it is all well and good to base big corporations like we have with HSBC and then they leave our shores and end up losing a lot of UK jobs and income.
There is a fine balance and a tricky path forward.

Announced in the March Budget, and forgotten about the next day, more like.
As for HSBC the problem there was more a case of them "hiding" customers money to help them evade tax. I was thinking more of companies like Google, Amazon, Vitol, Starbucks, Apple, et al.
This governments commitment to chasing these companies is summed up by the fact that George Osborne has already reduced Corporation Tax by 8% from 28% to 20% and now they are rejecting EU plans to combat the tax avoidance by these multinationals, so that it can have "tax competition"

Bit of a contradiction here potentially, you say that tennants buy there house many times over and when there is redress for this that is a bad thing.
So what do we do, charge rent until it covers the original mortgage and then let people live rent free.
This was not the point of the policy note anyway, it is saying those paying low rent on higher incomes will now pay a market rate.
Yes I totally do though agree the buy to let is creating a unsustainable future for UK housing and making it hard for everyone to buy a house.
That is true of low and high earners.
The avergae price in my area is over £280k that is a deposit along of £30k before fees etc

I was not trying to be contraire, I was just highlighting the fact that council house tenants were not being subsidised. I was then stating that RTB was not sustainable and that the funds from these sales are not properly utilised. Only half the proceeds of the sales were paid to the local authorities, but they were restricted to spending the money to reduce their debt until it was cleared, rather than being able to spend it on building more homes. The effect was to reduce the council housing stock, especially in areas where property prices were high such as London and the south-east of England. This trend was then exacerbated by a Government imposed ban on local authorities using their revenues from council house sales to fund new housing.
Both these policies, together with rising rents and cuts to state benefits, are linked to vast increase in homelessness.
In July 2013, the Scottish Government confirmed that Right to Buy would be abolished in Scotland from 2017, perhaps something can be learnt from the SNP after all !!

The policy aims to give councils more money and balance the books better, whilst yes revenue is balanced it is not balanced by department so low rents mean the closure of libraries high parking charges etc, so surely this have to be a good thing.

As I said above it is giving more money to the Government than it is to the councils and is certainly not spent on replacing housing stock.
It is also a fact that a third of RTB Council houses sold are now in the hands of rich landlords; like Charles Gow the son of former Margaret Thatcher Aide and Tory Housing Minister Ian Gow, who owns and rents out over 40 ex-council properties.

The child benefit was cut for those earning £60 or more as individuals and not families, this thus did not hit the lower classes.
The loss of Child Tax Credits and Working tax credits are in some part negated by the increase in the tax free allowances.

The loss of Child Tax Credits and Working Tax Credits (which basically replaced the married man's tax allowance) will not be negated by an increase in tax free allowances, which will be lower because they will be across the board and so married couples and families will suffer.

alimac · Jul 5, 2015

who knows
local council worker i am
as regards NHS up here we have become one joint NHS/ Council
a loss of £300 a month for me
lots more cuts to come

with regards to benefits rip of
sadly here its not the minority personally deal with it daily & can earn more than what i get

by year 2015 every school leaver will need to go into care to look after all with NHS

personally not going to say anymore on it

screwed for sure

Post Election Budget July 8th 2015

overthefence

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madhatter007

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D 8 RCS

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D 8 RCS

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overthefence

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Him Her

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D 8 RCS

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alimac

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