Chancellor Brown’s pre-election budget |
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Published
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Thu, 17 Mar 2005 01:00
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Gordon Brown announced in his ninth budget that the stamp duty on houses would be raised to £120,000. He levied 1p a pint on beer, 4p on a bottle of wine and 7p on 20 cigarettes. However, as expected, the petrol duty would be held till September. Chancellor Brown also declared a one-off £200 council tax refund and free local bus travel for pensioners.
Meanwhile, Brown stated in his speech that he had successfully reached the growth target of 3.1% for 2004 despite numerous apprehensions. According to him, his budget was designed to achieve stability and balance between affordable tax cuts and essential investments. Mr. Brown also revealed plans of a memorial to the Queen Mother that would be funded through a special coin, to celebrate her 80th birthday.
| In addition, a deal with the Council of Mortgage Lenders had been struck to boost low cost home ownership and an equal tax status for same-sex couples been achieved. Also about 12,500 civil servant posts had been sacked and about 7,800 moved out of the south east of England. He went on to say that he had abided by his ‘golden rule’ with a £6bn surplus and was predicting the economy to grow at a rate of 3 to 3.5% in 2005 and 2.5 to 3% in 2006.
Rival Tory party leader Michael Howard, however, termed the budget as ‘vote now, pay later’ and said that the budget had no solutions to offer for Labour’s problems. People were instead being asked to cast their votes now and would later have to shell out more from their pockets to pay taxes. Similarly, Liberal Democrat leader Charles Kennedy expressed his disagreement with the budget saying that the environment factor had been totally left out of the plans. He also said that it was very unfair to charge the poor section a 20% of taxes just like the rich and thereby felt that it was ‘high time’ for a fair system of taxes to prevail, based on one’s ability to pay.
While SNP leader Alex Salmond said that Brown had failed the "tartan test" as the Scottish economy had been left unattended, Simon Thomas of Plaid Cymru called it a budget for Middle England. Meanwhile UK Independence Party leader Roger Knapman spoke for pensioners saying that the retired were looking for more money and dignity and not for ‘free bus rides’. Following in the same vein, the Green Party called the Budget a "wasted opportunity", saying that Brown was only interested in the coming election and had therefore, turned a deaf ear to appalling environment issues.
All in all, whatever rebates and freebies the budget may be offering, it is clear that Brown has equally raked enough booty. About £265m have been received through windfall tax on oil companies and tax raids. The stamp duty relief that had been imposed for commercial property in disadvantaged areas just 3 years back has also been withdrawn by the chancellor. Besides this, the inheritance tax level is now going to stand at a high £275,000 from April against the previous £263,000.
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