So, “Rachel from Accounts” has delivered her budget!
Well, it could have been worse!
Those of us with some money in the bank – and the equity markets – were expecting to be caned. And we were!
However, it was a caning along the lines of those we schoolboys born in the early to mid 1950s received when the head[master] only landed one or two strokes on our backsides and not the six we had feared!
I quote from the IFA Magazine: “………In her Budget speech today, the Chancellor has announced a 2% increase to the basic and higher rates of tax on dividends, raising them from 8.75% to 10.75% and 33.75% to 35.75% respectively from April 2026.……..”
The plain simple FACT of the matter is this: For decades, UK governments have spent more than they have raised in taxes. Why? Because public spending is popular and taxes are unpopular!
Another FACT: Since the autumn of 1918, the UK £ has NOT been the world’s reserve currency. Since the autumn of 1945, the US $ has been and still is! That means that the UK cannot max out the national credit card as the USA can!
What might happen in the period before the next general election – to be held on Thursday 9th August 2029 ??????
That this Labour government will have kept the national debt under control, making themselves very unpopular in the process; leading to a large majority for another party of government promising large tax cuts who will promptly rack up the national debt which will then have to be brought down again!