Wednesday 7 March 2012

Maths and the budget

On Wednesday 21 March the Chancellor George Osborne will make his budget statement. Now I'm sure George Osborne doesn't welcome it but he's not short of people offering him advice.

Now one of the big talking points has been taking away child benefit from high earners. Up until now child benefit hasn't been means tested. The current plan is that for families where one parent earns more than £44k they will not be able to claim child benefit for any offspring they may have. However if you are a family where both parents work and are earning, say £35k each you will be allowed to hang on to any child benefit for any offspring you may have.

Now clearly I'm no economist but this neither adds up, nor does it make any sense, nor does it seem very fair. The Treasury estimates that this would save at least £1 billion, although at the time of the Comprehensive Spending Review (autumn 2010) they were saying it would save up to £2.5 billion.

The other issue being chewed over in the media this week is the so-called mansion tax. This emerged courtesy of the Liberal Democrat financial whizz - Vince Cable. What he is proposing is a tax on properties worth £2 million or more. Were this to be introduced it is thought it would raise up to £1.7 billion.

In the autumn of 2010 the Chancellor announced his Comprehensive Spending Review. This was essentially his outline of where his cuts were going to fall. One of the main thrusts of his CSR was benefit cuts.

Aside from the Child Benefit changes, George Osborne was expecting to make cuts to the welfare budget totalling £15.5 billion. These cuts will be to benefits that are paid to those who are out of work, those who are disabled, those who receive housing benefit etc.

What I really fail to understand is how savings of a lesser amount of money can generate so much debate when cuts to those who are sick, disabled, vulnerable, or out of work, those who are undoubtably the poorest in our society warrants so little comment.
































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