Post your thoughts here. Also post your predictions of when you are likely to be personally bankrupt. I can see us being gouged this time.

They need to reduce the deficit rather than have a pre-election give away.
However I'd never trust Labour to balance the books.

As this isn't actually a news item, more of a discussion, I'm moving it to the Meeting Place.

I can see a fair old tax increase on things like fuel, alcohol and cigarettes, but I think an income tax increase now would lead to a lynching.

I certainly don't think the budget is going to balance though, the deficit is definitely going to go up. If I am wrong, I will be more than grateful to eat my hat!

I expect a small giveaway but one which will not upset the money markets, and nothing much. He will announce his expected deficits and if they are around £160 Billion then he will have a small giveaway, which will not cause any excitement. The usual increasing of duties in line with inflation but nothing very interesting. This will be a dull budget.

My thoughts?

This isn't the real budget, that comes in May/June.

I expect that we will all be torn a new one.

There is the fuel duty increase on the 1st April and next year sees the 1% increase in NI.

What they give with one hand is taken away with the other.

Only if the Tories win. If Labour win then their may be another budget in November.

If Labour win I'm going to shout "FIX!" outside Downing Street.

How about they freeze the boundaries of each tax band? So with pay rises more people will move into a higher tax band. Technically not a rise, but they'll rake in more money on the sly.

Personally I want to see the personal allowance raised to £10,000 so that it's the worst off who benefit most, rather than cutting the basic rate of income tax.

If they keep raising the cost of petrol, even though oil prices have been dropping, I soon won't be able to afford to work where I work (or live where I live) I hope I can hang on until we move nearer my job

More to the point product cost will go up as haulage will cost more. Maybe they'll increase duty on petrol but not diesel, that way lorries wouldn't be affected.

I blinkin' well hope not

That is going to happen if these articles are true: http://www.investmentweek.co.uk/investm ... tax-report
and http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/fina ... h-tax.html

We are approaching the point where people will not be able to get to work in the first place. This is a major problem for the treasury, as the high cost in fuel will slow the economy down. Petrol prices are approaching £1.20 where I am, yet the price of oil is much lower than it was the last time we had such high prices.