http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-35813973

Rich get tax cuts, disabled get benefit cuts. Everyone gets to pay fizzy drinks sugar tax. Growth forecast down. Tobacco up, alcohol and fuel taxes frozen.

I think he could have done better.

Quote from: Serious on March 17, 2016, 00:11:51 AM

Rich get tax cuts

If by rich you mean everyone that works for a living then yeah, or did you just miss that out of your post?

So people on less than 40k who don't get a tax break don't 'work for a living'?

This is a sickening budget from Gideon, this isn't about people not being arsed to work, this is literally robbing those who are seriously disabled, who need help with the toilet etc in order to give higher wage earners a tax break, to say the absolute least it's morally bankrupt.

The rest is equally bad, but I'll save us all the time and just stop at the above

Quote from: Serious on March 17, 2016, 00:11:51 AM

Rich get tax cuts

If by rich you mean everyone that works for a living then yeah, or did you just miss that out of your post?

I think that if you look closely that has very little effect on most, very few people break the capital gains threshold of £11.1K so that has no effect until you get to larger shares investors.

Those on low wages are already under the £11K income tax tax threshold so will gain nothing from this. Note that the £11.5K is for April 2017, not this year.

The tax on sugary carbonated drinks is good, but should have equally applied to all high sugar drinks. Personally it could have been applied to all white sugar used.

For Osborne it's a win-win, they pay less benefit to low paid workers now and get more back in tax later. In between people on low wages suffer.

Sugar, surprisingly, causes people to get fat. It acts like a drug, you eat some and it gives you a sugar 'fix' but it doesn't last. Your digestion handles it very quickly and then you need some more. Worse it causes diabetic problems in many people.

Your body gets too much sugar and it turns it to fat, which is stored. The problem here is that turning it back takes much more effort so your body prefers to break down almost anything else when it needs energy.

The sugar and breakfast cereal companies whitewashed the whole thing back in the 70s, and have managed to keep it covered up for over four decades - blaming fat consumption instead. Truth is we eat less fat than ever yet people are even more fat on average now.

I think the tax doesn't go anywhere near far enough. White sugar is empty calories, is cheap to put in foods, and reality is we don't need it to live.