Why would you cut tax and raise tax at the same time? The Spring Statement and what it means for you

This is Money Podcast

This is Money

Business News, Business, Investing, News

4.1 • 650 Ratings

🗓️ 25 March 2022

⏱️ 49 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Why would you cut tax and raise the same tax at the same time? That’s been the slightly baffled response from many people to Rishi Sunak’s Spring Statement.

Effectively, the Chancellor both cut and raised National Insurance – lifting the threshold it is paid at but ignoring calls to 'spike the hike' and ploughing ahead with the 1.25 per cent being added to rates.

Bizarrely, the tax rate goes up in April, only for the threshold to rise and reduce bills shortly afterwards in July. And we wonder why people find tax taxing?

On this week’s podcast, Georgie Frost, Lee Boyce and Simon Lambert dive into the detail of the Spring Budget to explain what the NI hike / cut means for you.

Depending on their earnings some will be in the group paying more than now and some will pay less?

The team also look at the other measures in the Spring Statement and whether a 5p petrol duty cut and some money off solar panels really cuts the mustard in the face of a cost of living crisis.

The Office of Budget Responsibility also had some bad news for us: inflation is tipped to hit almost 9 per cent, energy bills are likely to rise another 40 per cent or so, and there’s the not so trivial matter of the biggest fall in living standards since records began in the 1950s. How bad will this feel?

Away from the Spring Statement, the podcast looks at what’s going on with building costs and how to try to get the best quote from a builder, stick to a budget and protect against price rises.

And finally, you might not go fully down the secretive POA (price on application) route when selling your home, but should you name an asking price, guide price, or ask for offers over a certain amount? Georgie, Lee and Simon dabble with a bit of estate agentese

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Welcome to This Is Money Podcast. I'm Georgie Frost and joining me and editor Simon Lambert today is Deputy Editor Lee Boyce.
0:06.9	And coming up, it was short, but was it sweet?
0:10.5	Simon and Lee pour over the details of the Chancellor's Spring Statement from national insurance threshold rises to fuel duty cuts.
0:17.5	Was there anything in there that will help the cost of living crisis now? Also
0:22.1	today, should you invest in battery storage, the eye-watering cost of building work, and
0:27.1	what's in an asking price? Don't be getting to up to date with all the latest breaking
0:30.9	money news. Just go to this ismoney.com.uk or download the app. But first, is that it? shouted one presumably Labour MP during the Chancellor's
0:41.9	Spring statement about the help that had just been announced in the face of the cost of living
0:46.6	crisis. Certainly a 5P cut in fuel duty, an extra £500 million for the poorest and VAT off your
0:52.7	solar panels wasn't going to cut it. But then,
0:55.9	like any good Chancellor, he saved his rabbits, if we can call them that, until a bit later on.
1:02.8	A raising at the national insurance threshold and a reduction of the basic rate of income tax by
1:08.3	1% in 2024. So, Lee, did the Chancellor position himself as the true
1:15.6	conservative low-tax chancellor? Certainly, it unraveled somewhat, didn't it? There was a lot of backlash
1:23.1	after the statement. Was it fair? I think it's relatively fair, Georgie. I guess the way to really
1:29.2	think about this and the backdrop in which this has been delivered, this spring statement, let's face it,
1:34.8	we've had a pandemic for a couple of years, we've had the Ukraine crisis in the last sort of month or so.
1:41.4	That's quite a tricky backdrop in which we've seen inflation soaring
1:46.1	and we've seen this cost of living crisis rear its ugly head, all in the aftermath of basically
1:52.5	the pandemic and then this Ukraine crisis. So that paints a picture of a difficult position
1:58.6	in which to deliver a budget or a spring statement,
2:02.4	as it were. Has the backlash being justified? Well, the big problem for Rishi Sunak and the government
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from This is Money, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of This is Money and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.