For us I don’t think it has , we were expecting to get hammered again but it’s not happened
The last one cost us a fortune but this one nothing so far.
I can see that salary sacrifice hasn’t changed either
I can see that small businesses continue to get hammered
I suspect that the thing which I'll feel the most is the ending of the fuel duty freeze. The £2m house tax is likely to be much less of an issue for me...
Need to stock up on diesel!
Pretty sure this is going to hit me this time...however, I'm genuinely clueless about my money.
I sense the EV thing and the pension thing are likely to hit me - but I've no idea how it will hit me!
Didn't pay much attention to anything else, the child allowance doesn't get paid to me, so no idea if that will change, I don't drink or smoke and I don't tend to do much socialising, so suspect anything else that is going to impact me I won't actually be aware of now.
Yes. My income tax will go up and tax relief on ISAs will impact me. It will be interesting to see if all the saving from the utilities levy change is passed onto customers or if the energy companies use it to hike prices and leave bills about the same
Fuel duty isn't much of an issue as we don't drive lots, 8,000 miles over 2 vehicles. Glad he bike scheme hasn't changed as I do want a new bike next year. ISA's pension AVC, don't have enough cash to worry about it.
I'll be paying more tax just like most folk, but it's not a big deal.
fiscal drag will hit, but rail fare freeze and hopefully utility bill drop will be great
obviously dodged a bullet by not being able to afford a 2million pound house
It’s created 2 threads for me to monitor about the budget.
Other than that, no it hasn’t for us.
The cap on salary sacrifice isn't coming in for a few years, which is great news from a personal point of view ..
Do we need two threads about the budget?
In this case, Yes, as the other one has the word "thread" in it....
Need to stock up on diesel!
I thought that had been frozen for another year or so?
ISA - thats going forward though isnt it? Not existing ie they are not going to be able to reduce existing ISA deposits, only future ISAs that are opened ?
My existing Cash ISA is way outperforming my stocks and shares ISA though 🙁
Do we need two threads about the budget?
This place needs more threads, its so quiet compared to the 'good old days'
The title of the other one doesnt infer the impact on individuals and has been running for a while so concluded that was more about what the budget could be 🙂
Yes quite a bit. I have been sal sac a lot into my pension, so the additional NI will be a fair bit. I expect my work will probably reduce the amount it matches for employee contributions to offset the additional employer contributions they're paying for now, or they will reduce any pay rises. We also have an EV so that'll hit us. The big one that will impact me is the continued freezing of the thresholds for tax and for childcare - getting ridiculous now.
Actually, i'm wrong, it seems in the detail that the matched contributions aren't impacted: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/changes-to-salary-sacrifice-for-pensions-from-april-2029/changes-to-salary-sacrifice-for-pensions-from-april-2029
No, other than fiscal drag.
PPM on EVs, which is 2 years away is easily outweighed by the increase in Lux Car VED to £50k taking me out of it.
I have loose plans to really push pension payments in 2/3 years to try to reduce my retirement age, but I don't fully understand the changes yet and I'm not sure the limit will affect my plans.
Mostly, I'm hoping it will affect me in a positive way, through better public services and a more stable, less debt ridden economy when my Kid becomes an adult in 6 years, but only time will tell.
EDIT: Based on the link above, paying NI on some of my planned extra payments... it's not going to change the world for me. If I was trying to stuff in £50k a year then I might have something to moan about, but anyone who can afford to miss £50k of salary a year should probably consider themselves very fortunate when poverty and inequality is so bad in the UK.
It may affect some of my customers (who are mainly small businesses). I know of at least one cafe who is calling it a day at the end of the year.
A bit. The NI pensions thing could see MrsDoris pension pot worse off by £500 a year. But lower energy bills will offset that by £150.
The only other thing is the fiscal drag effect, but my pay rises are so meagre we can discount that to zero.
Actually. The pensions thing. Does anyone know how it works? If you earned, say 45K and sacrificed 5k into your pension, you'd now be paying NI on 3k of it.
So that's £414. But would that be taken off your net income (so you'd feel it now), or would it come off the pension contribution itself (so your monthly take home would be unaffected)?
Only the sal sac has really got me looking at the budget but its not for another 3 years so no immediate issues. I put any bonus I receive into my pension via this method but based on recent numbers that wont amount to a whole load of extra NI, maybe £600. Which in the grand scheme of things is not a lot.
I don't mind them raising tax as long as that tax is spent on things that are going to benefit the population, sadly it often just seems to prop up cuts and benefits for so many multinationals who've spent the last 2 months lobbying their case.
@doris5000 if you sal sac into your pension every month surely the effect would be felt a little bit every month? I imagine this kind of thing will be fun for pay roll teams to work out how to administer it.
I get paid a bonus every quarter (or so I would like to think) so I imagine I will get hit for the amount quarterly.
if you sal sac into your pension every month surely the effect would be felt a little bit every month?
Yes, but I meant, will it come off your take home pay, or does it come off the pension contribution itself?
I suppose we'll all find out in May 2029 anyway 😅
The Guardian calculator estimated I'd be worse off by about £30 which if i'm honest I could recover if I gave up my Crisps habit.
Budget - has it effected you ?
As someone who lives on max pip/universal credit/mobility car/no pension-wont live to see one/zero savings etc then the budget hasn't affected me as far as I can make out.
I was pretty ****ed before it and I'm still pretty ****ed now.
obviously dodged a bullet by not being able to afford a 2million pound house
That made me laugh!
Keeping tax bands the same means you are all likely paying more tax over the coming months as your wages increase.
By doing nothing at all and freezing those thresholds you are being clobbered.
A stealth stealth tax that Sunak enjoyed doing so Reeves thought she would carry it on.
Using the Guardian calculator my wife and I will apparently be circa £500/year worse off 26/27 - that's mostly in tax, but they may have been pre existing changes. Not fussed about that tbh
That's with her slightly under her personal allowance with self employed income, me at the allowance and both receiving dividends
I earn about £700 a year into the 40% tax band and if I get any pay rises that will increase, so I am impacted but not a lot.
The Guardian calculator estimated I'd be worse off by about £30 which if i'm honest I could recover if I gave up my Crisps habit.
Lucky you, you've £1.64 bonus over me.
That calculator doesn't include EV cars, so doesn't cover everything, nor does it seem to cover pensions...unless I'm even more clueless about all this than I thought!
By doing nothing at all and freezing those thresholds you are being clobbered.
Your idea of clobbered must be different to mine. My annual pay rises over the last 20yrs have been between 0% and ~ 2% (working in the NHS) so quite frankly I imagine it’s bugger all of bugger all
Unlike the wealth tax that was placed on private schools
That calculator doesn't include EV cars, so doesn't cover everything, nor does it seem to cover pensions
Those aren't immediate change, EV tax is a couple of years away, s so if the calculator is looking at this year vs next year there's no impact. (assuming you mean pension contributions?)
Ah fair point...my doom and gloom radar is looking for the impact now!
My daughter put her details on the Guardian calculator....married with 1 child...both her and hubbie on lowish paid jobs (caring and 'excluded kids' education) The calculator shows her £19.93 a year better off but husband is £18.42 worse off. So a young couple with 1 child so far, both working full time are better off to the tune of £1.51. Helping the working people...yeah right.
I will be £14.73 worse off according to Guardian. As I said on budget thread, for most people budgets make minor differences when spread over a year so not sure why everyone get's so excited about them
Hasn't yet, will do in 2028. Probably the biggest impact will be to future pension as I'll almost certainly lose the National Insurance contributions from my employer into a salary sacrifice pension. I fed it into Gemini and it came out with the following:
Pension contributions: -£1,400
EV tax: -£400
Fiscal drag: -£9,750 (sliding payscale)
Prepared to overlook the fiscal drag to an extent as I'll increase my part time percentage.
Taxman also down the takings from one pub that I mentioned in another thread, as I can't see it remaining open now the rateable value has more than doubled.
The whole Budget screams cowardice when it comes to wider tax reforms and a casual bribe towards elderly pensioner Reform and Tory voters. I do genuinely think it's damaging to businesses. Even things like pushing up the minimum wage for 16-18 years olds: superficially sounds like a good idea, but if they don't get work at all (the lower wage does represent lower experience), a bit pointless.
1400 quid reduction in pension over a 2% NI increase...... isnt there a 60k limit for the year on what you can put in ?
Your idea of clobbered must be different to mine. My annual pay rises over the last 20yrs have been between 0% and ~ 2% (working in the NHS) so quite frankly I imagine it’s bugger all of bugger all
Indeed. As a university employee, pay rises have averaged 1.6% since 2009. (Inflation averaged 2.9%). Fiscal drag is really not a concern!
Something like £22 worse off for me & my Wife. My work do the salary sacrifice thing for pensions, so I imagine that will have an impact when it kicks in.
1400 quid reduction in pension over a 2% NI increase...... isnt there a 60k limit for the year on what you can put in ?
To maintain the same pension contributions you have to pay both the employee and employer NI contributions.
isnt there a 60k limit for the year on what you can put in ?
Yes, but you can carry forward unused allowances for up to 3 years.
isnt there a 60k limit for the year on what you can put in ?
Yes, but you can carry forward unused allowances for up to 3 years.
We think it’s about £10 per months for our household.
I’m not overly fussed, but would actually be happy if I felt that £10 would be well spent.
Do none of you buy stuff from abroad then, utilising the customs relief on Low Value Imports (<£135)?
Not much coverage of this (relatively), but it will impact lots of people who buy cheap from overseas. About time the like of Temu and Shein stopped getting a 'leg up'. It will make German online bike shopping less competitive though.
Will make little to no difference to buying from EU countries. Will put the brakes on drop shipping from China though. Note that the same is happening in EU countries, by the way. And probably sooner than here.
About £50pa worse off in my household. Could be worse I suppose, at least we don't smoke or drink.
Is there a dummies guide to the pension changes?
Well there's one thing that this govt is hell bent on raising awareness of, even more so than the one they have succeeded...
"Fiscal Drag"...
Something that nobody knew what it was only a few years ago, pretty soon everybody will know about it and be feeling it, if they don't already!