[Ignitionnet]

Originally Posted by Chrysalis

thanks for the list, to me what stands out is a corp tax rate drop which wont be effective other than to reduce tax intake

Is that your personal view or do you have citations from a spectrum of economists to indicate that it will have zero stimulating effect on the private sector and will not be a pro-growth policy?

Originally Posted by Chrysalis

On the corp tax people may (rightly) feel all the aggressive cuts going on in social services etc. are simply a way of shifting money to corporate profits with this tax cut.

If it suits their agenda I'm sure that's how they feel, especially if basing that view on your assumption that the corporation tax reduction will have no stimulating effect on the economy.

Ireland's experience says otherwise.

Damn those vicious cuts.

Planned Public Sector Spending in £ billion

Year Change
2010-11 696.8 0.0
2011-12 701.8 +5.0
2012-13 713.0 +12.2
2013-14 724.2 +11.2
2014-15 739.8 +15.6

---------- Post added at 17:48 ---------- Previous post was at 17:37 ----------

Originally Posted by Chrysalis

However thinking about it a bit more this comes a tax cut by stealth to corp's again as currently companies pay half of NI themselves whilst the employee pays income tax. So it will be interesting to see how a migration is handled, would people in effect see a net salary reduction taking over the company part of NI as income tax or will it be handled in a manner where the average worker doesnt lose out.

No, they aren't going to shove employer's NI onto the employee, that would be absurd. It'll be replaced by something else most likely or at very least employers required to hand that money to employees in increased salary or hourly rate so that they are no worse off.

There is nothing in this budget to shift burdens from corporations to individuals, the only policies that may give that impression are, rightly, being done to promote growth. The temporary VAT cut was to promote increased consumer spending, the corporation tax cut is to promote increased business activity in the UK, the kind that is needed to create jobs, those lovely things that turn people from welfare claimants into tax payers and mean money for the treasury instead of outlay from the DWP.

If you're looking for a nasty tax rise try this:

The biggest tax hike is the new floor on the carbon price. In other words, a £1.4 billion tax by 2015-16 added to electricity bills for families and struggling manufacturing industries.