The budget 2008
The Budget 2008is set to be delivered tomorrow at 12.30pm by the Chancellor Alistair Darling. I’m sure you’ve already seen the press coverage suggesting that Alistair Darling is merely presenting Gordon Brown’s measures as former Chancellor himself.
Among the changes likely to be announced are increase in ‘green taxes’ things like 4×4 drivers being hit hard again, and help for people struggling to pay their bills. The government is expected to continue to incentivise low emission cars. It’s just a shame they seem to be intent on pricing everyone else off the road with extortionate fuel prices. I wouldn’t mind so much if public transport was actually any good! If I were to try and complete my 20 mile journey to work every day by public transport it would take me around 2 and half hours to do a journey that takes half an hour to 40 minutes in a car. I’m just not going to do it!!
Recent research from insurance company Direct Line shows that 16 per cent of drivers considering buying a car in 2008 will buy a 4×4 or a people carrier. I think cars with bigger engines should be taxed more and this is a fair way of taxing road users but it’s getting to the point where you’ll have to be fairly rich to comfortably afford the cost of buying a car in the first place, let alone the running costs of fuel, road tax, insurance insurance and so on…
Looking at the BBC web site earlier today people are leaving comments on a variety of topics including small business being no friend of this government, hopes for the Chancellor to drop the fuel escalator, pensioners wanting to be exempt from council tax, measures to help single parents pay for childcare childcare and people wanting help to get on the property ladder, plus many more I’m sure.
We’ll see what happens tomorrow at 12.30pm…don’t get too excited, the budget seems to me like the next long list of increasing taxes…Let’s hope I’m proven wrong!
March 12th, 2008 at 12:45 pm
[…] incentives to buy green cars. That’s exactly what I said just yesterday in my pre-budget post http://www.thefinancialblog.co.uk/the-budget-2008 “It’s just a shame the government are intent on pricing everyone else off the road with […]