A mathematician will say there is no loss if a pint mug of beer is poured into another pint glass. A realist will point to the puddle on the floor and the part-full glass. George Osborne may find that his budget is not as fiscally neutral as he hopes.
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George Osborne should curtail pension tax reliefs, despite the superannuation industry getting its retaliation in first. Any tax increase will cause squeals, but of all the chancellor’s options, taxing pensions is easiest and could even win votes.
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George Osborne may have no idea what to put into his next budget but he knows when it will be. Just a week after delivering an Autumn Statement in November that was cobbled together at the last minute, he has announced the next budget will be Wednesday 21 March 2012.
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George Osborne’s March 2011 budget may be lots of things but it was not radical, despite its billing. He used the word “radical” three times and “reform” on 17 occasions in his speech but gave no evidence of it being either.
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Banker bashing is not finished, but the oil companies have now been added to the UK chancellor’s parade of corporate villains. His 2011 budget puts a new levy on both to pay for his giveaways.
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George Osborne’s balance in his first budget had to be to stimulate wealth creation while cutting state spending, but the new coalition chancellor has delayed the expenditure cuts while taxing business as much as it gains.
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Alistair Darling must have been tempted to present a budget so full of promises it set an impossible trap for an incoming Conservative government. In fact the chancellor has promised so much Labour is in danger of winning the general election and being caught in its own trap.
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This will be the year of two UK budgets – and the year of none. The chancellor’s pre-election budget will avoid tough action for fear of losing votes and the post-election budget will avoid it because the manifestos shied away from tough threats.
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Everyone agrees the government must return a sick economy to health. The disagreement is how quickly to do it. Too much medicine could kill the patient; too little allows the disease to fester.
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Alistair Darling should be wary about announcing new tax holidays in April’s budget, but he should not make the mistake of canceling the current ones because they are not working. And he should not make the mistake of extending them.
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