Budget March 2008
Queens Speeches and Budgets
Budget March 2008
Alistair Darling announced his first budget at a difficult time, but announced a budget for stability. Here are the major announcements.
Taxation
- Non-doms will have to pay a levy of £30,000 per annum after 7 years of residence, to cover their overseas income
- Duty on alcoholic drinks have been increased
Helping families and pensioners
- £1bn will be spent to lift more than 250,000 children out of poverty
- child benefit will be increased to £20 a week a year earlier
- from 2009, child benefit will also be disregarded when calculating income for benefits
- families with two children will be £130 pa better off thanks to changes in Child Tax Credit
- Winter fuel allowances will be raised - £50 extra for most pensioners and £100 for those over 80
- Energy companies will have to spend £100m extra per annum to subsidise the fuel bills of those in poverty
Environment and communities
- The rise in fuel duty of 2p a litre has been delayed for 6 months, because of the economic outlook
- There will be a new system for Vehicle Excise Duty, based on the emissions of the vehicle. The tax will have a staggered introduction between now and 2010/11, when the most polluting vehicles will pay £950.
- If supermarkets do not substantially reduce their use of plastic carrier bags in the next year, a tax will be introduced
- The proposed air passenger duty already announced will be increased by an extra 10%
- We have already said that new houses built from 2016 must be zero-carbon, but from 2019, all new non-domestic buildings will also have to be zero carbon
- Key workers and first-time buyers will be able to buy just 50% of a property in shared equity schemes, down from 75%