Budget 2015 guide: Sector-by-sector

Courtesy of our colleagues at Dods Monitoring, here's a sector-by-sector summary of the main measures in Chancellor George Osborne's Budget.


Baldo Sciacca

By Dods Group

18 Mar 2015

TAX

 

Cutting beer duty by 1p; cider duty down by 2 per cent; Scottish and spirits down by 2 per cent and wine duty frozen

Personal tax free allowance rise to £10,800 in 2016 and £11,000 in 2017

The 40p threshold will rise above inflation to £43,300 by 2017/18

A new personal savings allowance to take 95 per cent of taxpayers out of savings tax. From April 2016, first £1,000 on savings from earnings will be tax free and the upper tax payers allowance will be set at £500.

Lifetime pension relief allowance reduced from £1.25m to £1m, allowanced to be indexed from 2018

Conducting a review on avoidance of inheritance tax on use of Deeds of Variation, to report by autumn 2015.

Charities will be able to claim automatic Gift Aid on the first £8,000 of small donations, up from £5,000

Abolish annual tax return altogether and updated online tax accounts to manage complex accounts online.

Allow police and firefighter widows to remarry without facing a pension penalty.

 

SPENDING AND BORROWING

Launching sale of £13bn mortgage assets held from Northern Rock and Bradford and Bingley. The Chancellor said the money would be used, as well as lower interest payments, to pay down the national debt

Selling £9bn at least of Lloyds Bank shares in coming year

Debt as share of GDP to start falling in 2015/16, a year earlier than expected

In 2019-20, public spending will grow in line with the growth of the economy

Government spending as a proportion of GDP will be at the same level as in the year 2000 by the end of the next Parliament

Tories plan £30bn savings to be achieved by 2017-18, which will include £13bn of savings from government departments, £12bn from welfare savings and £5bn from tackling tax avoidance and evasion

 

FINANCIAL SERVICES

Raising the rate of the bank levy to 0.21 per cent, to raise an additional £900m a year.

Libor fines will contribute another £75m to armed services charities, including a memorial for Afghanistan veterans.

 

SAVINGS

A new Help to Buy ISA will be introduced, for every £200 saved for a housing deposit, the government will contribute £50 more

A “radically” more flexible ISA to give complete freedom to tax money out, and put it back in later in the year, without losing any tax-free entitlement

Give five million pensioners access to their annuity, the next year punitive tax charge will abolished and only charged at the marginal rate

 

EDUCATION

Loans up to £25,000 will be available for postgraduate PhD and masters research students

 

ENERGY AND ENVIRONMENT

Farmers will be allowed to average out their income over five years for tax purposes

Opening negotiations for the tidal energy project in Swansea Bay

Compensation package for energy intensive industries brought forward

£1.3bn of support for the oil and gas industry

 

DEFENCE

More money for security services against terrorism

£25m will be provided to help the UK’s eldest veterans, including nuclear test veterans

 

HEALTH

£1.25bn for mental health services for young people and new mums

 

TRANSPORT AND INFRASTRUCTURE

New rail franchise for the South West, with £7bn of investment in roads and air links

Expanding broadband vouchers to more cities, committing to a national ambition to 100 megabits per second to nearly all homes in Britain

Cancelling the fuel duty increase scheduled for September

 

LOCAL GOVERNMENT AND HOUSING

Treble funding for church roof appeals

100% business rate growth to be kept for Manchester Combined, Cambridge and surrounding councils. The door is open to other councils to approach the Treasury for the same deal

Confirming first 20 Housing Zones, and creating eight enterprise zones

 

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