Thought Id start this one going because its rather dead on this board at the moment and I suppose all my usual muckers are either at the Stella tennis event watching Dim Tim (lose again) or at Henly Regatta eating cucumber sandwiches (they wish,...NOT).

Anyway please feel free to just talk to yourself blast away and let it go on any company or subject you wish. Just wish Id thought of this one before.

cheers GF.

The main measures and forecasts as outlined by the Chancellor George Osborne in his Autumn Statement:

:: Stamp duty reform to save money for 98% of homebuyers and represent total tax cut of £800m a year.

:: Stamp Duty rates overhauled. Top rate is now 12% on properties worth more than £1.5m, effective from midnight tonight. There will be no stamp duty on properties worth up to £125,000 then 2% rate on the portion up to £250,000 then 5% up to £925,000, then 10% up to £1.5m.

:: Higher rate income tax threshold to rise to #42,385 next year.

:: Income tax free personal allowance to rise to £10,600 rather than the planned £10,500 next year, giving wage boost of £825 a year.

:: Limit on saving in New ISAs to rise to £15,240 and ISAs can be inherited tax free.

:: Plans law to devolve corporation tax to Northern Ireland if the Northern Ireland executive shows it can manage the financial implications.

:: "Northern Powerhouse is at the heart" of the statement. Investment of £250m in new advanced material science institute in Manchester with branches in Leeds, Sheffield and Liverpool. Tendering for new franchises for Northern Rail and Trans-Pennine Express to ensure modern trains.

:: Britain awarded the lead role in the international effort to explore Mars.

:: Fuel duty remains frozen. Immediate reduction in oil industry supplementary charge from 32% to 30%.

:: Inflation-linked increase in business rates capped at 2% and discount for shops, pubs and cafes increased by 50% to £1,500. Business rates for Wales to be devolved to Welsh Government.

:: People who die under 75 to be enabled to pass on annuities tax free.

:: Government-backed student loans of up to £10,000 are to be made available for postgraduates.

:: Annual charge on properties "enveloped" to avoid stamp duty to rise by 50% above inflation on properties over £2m.

:: Air Passenger Duty for under-12s abolished from May 2015. Scrapped from 2016 for under-16s.

:: Charge for non-dom tax status to rise to £60,000 a year for those resident for 12 of the last 14 years and #90,000 for those in the country for 17 of 20 years.

:: National debt incurred during First World War to be repaid, taking advantage of UK's low interest rates.

:: A so-called 'Google Tax' will introduce a levy of 25% on profits shifted abroad by multi-national firms. The Diverted Profits Tax aims to raise more than £1bn over five years.

:: Banks to pay almost £4bn more in tax over next five years as profits which can be offset by losses for tax purposes are to be limited to 50%.

:: A further £10bn of Whitehall efficiencies is planned while £5bn more is sought from crackdown on tax evasion and avoidance.

:: Public service pension reforms will be completed, saving £1.3bn annually.

:: NHS gets additional £2bn every year for frontline services. A £1.2bn investment in GP services will be paid for from foreign exchange fines.

:: Government spending £10bn less than forecast this year but warns the coming years will require "very substantial savings in public spending."

:: Osborne says deficit reduction better than some commentators believed. He says while tax take is not rising as quickly as predicted, welfare spending is lower and interest paid on national debt is considerably lower.

:: "Deficit is falling this year and every year." Deficit now cut in half. OBR forecasts borrowing to fall from £97.5bn in 2013/14 to £91.3bn in 2014/15 (£5bn higher than OBR predicted). Budget surplus of £23bn predicted for 2019/20.

:: OBR predicts wage growth above inflation for the next five years.

:: National Insurance on young apprentices to be abolished.

:: Unemployment revised down for each year of OBR forecast. Osborne: 85% of new jobs created are full-time.

:: Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR): Forecast 2014 GDP growth upgraded to 3% from 2.7%. 2015 forecast raised to 2.4%.

:: The deficit "remains too high", so today's announcements will tighten the public finances and are "not a net give away".

George Osborne is a brilliant chancellor . Excellent autumn statement.

Like his joke about the Red Planet

How red will Ball's face go , making a ball's up of his reply at the moment

Who is this Mithta Speaka that Balls keeps referring to?!

Haze,

Was that a handout from Central Office?

stamp duty
as i'm a lazy bugger, am i to understand that stamp duty is now graduated rather as is income tax
if that is the case, then about time too as the previous system was iniquitous

assuming the above is so, it will be interesting to work out how much stamp duty will be payable on a house worth £2m and £3m on the new as well as the old system - if someone could remind me what that was

Property

Stamp Duty reformed to become more progressive, introduces marginal tax rates. Changes come into force from tonight.

Up to £125,000 - no tax
Up to £250,000 - 2pc
Up to £925,000 - 5pc
Up to £1.5m - 10pc
Above that - 12pc

Stamp duty cut for 98pc of homebuyers who pay it, you pay more if you buy anything above £937,000.

thanks DB
it's certainly a big hike once you get above £937k, but at least it's a one-off tax and i guess in lieu of the much-touted mansion tax

i confess that in the home counties, and indeed in parts of yorkshire and cheshire (and aberdeen i think), there is a high % of houses that will be marketed (or valued or sold!) at £1m+

given the cost of property in central or even greater london (for example), i'm quite surprised there are not other or different or more graduations from say £1m and beyond

I'm not quite sure what properties come into the - up to £125,000 category. A beach hut at Frinton?

Average house price in UK is about £187,000 so there must be quite a few properties below £125,000.

But only up north, wont get you much (if anything) down south...Wales?

certainly lots of properties fall between £125k and £250k, even around the home counties, and i understand that they are beneficiaries

""OBR predicts wage growth above inflation for the next five years.""

Lol... So then I'd assume that inflation will remain below the 2% and there will be no chance of an interest rate rise.... That is of course if the OBR is still with us in 5 years...

DB4

Who is this Mithta Speaka that Balls keeps referring to?!

Ask TANKER

labour mp for bradford east

You can snag an under £120k property in londonistan, if you are not too fussy.


http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/London-87490.html?maxPrice=120000&retirement=false&partBuyPartRent=false

there's good properties in medway region with very good links to london at <£250k ..... that's where my paupies buy to let is, and why i know

By Janet Daley
2:25PM GMT 03 Dec 2014
The Chancellor's final pre-election set piece should have knocked Labour's campaign well off course

Well, some of the major hints about what the Chancellor "would have to admit" in the Autumn Statement turned out to be disinformation. He didn't admit to anything. The deficit, contrary to general belief, was not up but down. As was the expected borrowing requirement. George Osborne had not, in fact, got the country into more debt. True, the tax receipts were lower than might have been expected, considering how much employment had increased, but even with that little setback Mr Osborne managed, with a single bound, to bring happy news about the national finances. This was because of a quite amazingly helpful revision of forecasts by the Office for Budget Responsibility. This may seem like a very convenient miracle but, for the moment, at least it was a devastatingly blow to the Opposition. It won't actually mean a lot to the havering voter who tends to regard national deficits as too abstract by half, but it does knock the stuffing out of Labour's critique of the Osborne programme. Which seemed to be the object of the exercise.

This was a very political statement designed to throw Labour into disarray. The Tories are now running against Ed Miliband and Ed Balls - and it's personal, hence the Wallace and Gromit jokes. There was a lot of Gordon Brown-style bragging about the government's economic achievements, and quite a lot of tinkering with details that would have been largely incomprehensible to the folks at home. There was money – as we already knew – for those favoured road works, and the NHS, and for scientific research (very Gordon Brown). There was yet another "clampdown" on tax avoidance and something that seemed to be called "aggressive tax management" especially by multinational companies. Mr Osborne rattled it all off at breakneck speed as if he were dying to get to the good bits at the end. And then they came. First there was the next change in the personal tax allowance which sounded pretty unexciting: up from £10,500 to £10,600. But then he announced that this would now be extended in full to higher-rate tax payers – which increases the threshold for the 40 per cent rate by a significant enough sum to make a difference to middle income families. This was a kind of down payment on the Prime Minister's promise to raise the threshold to £50,000 over the life of another parliament. So that's one for the Tory core vote.

But we were still waiting for the rabbit that would give us the shape of the election campaign – and then it arrived. When that giant bunny jumped on to the floor of the House, it must have thrown Labour's election strategy into chaos. The Osborne reform of stamp duty is more revolutionary than it looks. By bringing its logic into line with income tax – in which you pay an increasing charge only on that proportion of the price which exceeds a given limit, rather than on the whole amount – Mr Osborne has significantly helped those at the lower end of the market while clobbering those at the highest end. That makes it very difficult for Labour to sustain the charge that the Tories are the "party of the rich". His policy is also eminently more fair than a mansion tax because it will not affect people living in houses that happen to have increased wildly in value over the decades, due to forces completely beyond their control. It will be a one-off charge on those who are purchasing, not a wealth tax which would fall on those who are staying put. It will free up the bottom end of the market thus helping first-time buyers and liberating the property-purchase chains in which many middle-market houses are trapped. Above all, it will give a great deal of trouble to Labour's campaigning pitch. That, presumably, was the whole point.

The Telegraph

cynic

labour mp for bradford east , lol

That was funny , but he sounds more East European

Alfred , I think it was Chatham but could have been Rochester as they run into each other, but Gracie Fields once said it was the biggest Sh+t House that she had ever played in... my god and you own property there what on earth came over you -):

house of 249000 before today stamp duty £2490
house of 249000 today £2480 saved 10

its all a con by the cons looking after the rich again