George’s Marvellous (?) Medicine
Introduction George Osborne has just delivered his last Budget speech before the election. As it stands, the election is too close to call, so who knows if he’ll get another opportunity. This was a highly political budget, but included a huge number of changes. I’ll attempt to summarise those changes, and list some action points. Overview The budget has been delivered against a background of higher growth, and lower inflation. This has given the Chancellor a large degree of room for manoeuvre. He has used this to announce a wide range of changes, while continuing to reduce the expected deficit. He now expects to return to a surplus in 2018/19, meaning the national debt will eventually start to fall then. These figures have been based on reasonable growth forecasts of an average of 2.4% per annum over the next Parliament. Changes affecting individuals Income tax The increase in the personal…