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The Guardian - UK

World

Simon Rogers

Tax and benefit changes 2011: find out which will hit you from today

The pain is here. As of today, 43 new tax and benefit changes came into effect. They're a cocktail of cuts in housing benefit, changes to national insurance contributions and tax credits and corporation tax.

This data has been compiled by the Institute for Fiscal Studies as part of its annual Green Budget - and this table is from that report.

The overall effect is to save some £10.4bn for the treasury by the end of 2012-13. This excludes the effects of cuts announced in the Comprehensive Spending Review which will come in later. There are some giveaways in there too, worth around £4bn each year. But the cuts are the big story.

It's not all the Liberal-Conservative coalition, either. The vast majority of cuts are from Labour's last budget, were kept by the coalition and come into effect today. In the long run, this picture will change and the Coalition cuts will come into effect.

But these changes come as other IFS research reveals that in the three years from 2008 to 2011 real household incomes will have fallen by 1.6% - the biggest three year drop in real living standards since 1980-83.

We've added in George Osborne's changes to Corporation Tax announced in the latest budget too, which changes the numbers a little from the original report.

The full data is below. What can you do with it?

Data summary

Tax and benefit changes, April 1, 2011
ID	Tax or benefit	Measure	Announced by	2011-12 effect for HMT, £m	2012-13 effect for HMT, £m
1	Total	Announced by last Labour government	Labour	9,360	13,950
2	Income tax	Freeze basic-rate limit	Labour	410	580
3	Income tax	Restrict tax relief on pension contributions	Labour	200	3,500
4	Income tax	Freeze annual and lifetime allowances for pension contributions	Labour	400	450
5	National Insurance	Increase primary threshold	Labour	-2,930	-3,090
6	National Insurance	Increase all rates by 1ppt	Labour	9,020	9,350
7	Indirect taxes	Tobacco duty escalator (continues in 2012–13)	Labour	50	100
8	Indirect taxes	Fuel duty escalator (continues in 2012–13)	Labour	490	980
9	Indirect taxes	Alcohol duty escalator (continues in 2012–13)	Labour	120	240
10	Tax credits	Reduce minimum hours of those aged 60 or over to qualify for Working Tax Credit to 16	Labour	-20	-20
11	Expiry of one-off giveaways	Cut in Winter Fuel Payment	Labour	600	600
12	Expiry of one-off giveaways	1.5% real cut in the value of some benefits	Labour	700	700
13	Expiry of one-off giveaways	Other tax and benefit changes	Labour	320	560
14	Total	Announced in June 2010 Budget	Conservative	-4,315	-3,515
15	Income tax and National Insurance	Increase personal allowance, cut the basic-rate	Conservative	-3,490	-3,700
16	Income tax and National Insurance	limit and increase the upper earnings limit	Conservative
17	Income tax and National Insurance	Increase employer NICs threshold	Conservative	-3,130	-3,150
18	Income tax and National Insurance	Relief for new businesses in targeted regions	Conservative	-320	-390
19	Income tax and National Insurance	Reduce second income threshold to £40,000	Conservative	140	145
20	Income tax and National Insurance	Increase first and second withdrawal rates to 41%	Conservative	640	710
21	Income tax and National Insurance	Reduce income disregard to £10,000	Conservative	105	140
22	Income tax and National Insurance	Abolish baby element	Conservative	295	275
23	Income tax and National Insurance	Increase child element by £150/year above indexation, and £60/year in 2012–13	Conservative	-1,200	-1,845
24	Housing Benefit	Link Local Housing Allowance rates to 30th percentile of local rents	Conservative	65	365
25	Housing Benefit	Index non-dependent deductions with prices	Conservative	125	225
26	Housing Benefit	Cap Local Housing Allowance rates and cap maximum allowance at four-bedroom rate	Conservative	55	65
27	Housing Benefit	Additional bedroom for carers	Conservative	-15	-15
28	Housing Benefit	Increase discretionary housing payments	Conservative	-10	-40
29	Other benefits	Switch to CPI indexation for most benefits and tax credits (also in 2012–13)	Conservative	1,170	2,240
30	Other benefits	Freeze Child Benefit (also in 2012–13)	Conservative	365	695
31	Other benefits	Increase Pension Credit guarantee	Conservative	-415	-535
32	Other benefits	Abolish Child Trust Fund	Conservative	540	550
33	Other benefits	Abolish Health in Pregnancy Grant	Conservative	150	150
34	Other benefits	Restrict Sure Start Maternity Grant to first child	Conservative	75	75
35	Corporation tax	Reduce main rate to 27% (and 26% in 2012–13)	Conservative	-400	-1,200
36	Corporation tax	Reduce small companies’ rate to 20%	Conservative	-100	-1,000
37	Corporation tax	Introduce bank levy	Conservative	1,150	2,320
38	Capital gains tax	Increase rate to 28% for higher-rate taxpayers and increase entrepreneurs’ relief	Conservative	725	825
39	Council tax	Freeze	Conservative	-625	-630
40	Other tax and benefit measures	Other tax and benefit measures	Conservative	-185	-180
41	Total	Announced in 2010 Spending Review	Conservative	320	370
42	Benefits and tax credits	Freeze maximum Savings Credit award (also in 2012–13)	Conservative	165	215
43	Benefits and tax credits	Freeze basic and 30-hour elements of Working Tax Credit (also in 2012–13)	Conservative	195	415
44	Benefits and tax credits	Reduce payable childcare costs in Working Tax Credit from 80% to 70%	Conservative	270	320
45	Benefits and tax credits	Increase child element of Child Tax Credit by a further £30/year, and another £50 in 2012–13	Conservative	-190	-510
46	Benefits and tax credits	Other benefit measures	Conservative	-120	-70
47	Total	Total ‘giveaway’	Total	-13,390	-16,075
48	Total	Total ‘takeaway’	Total	18,755	26,880
49	Total	Grand total	Total	5,365	10,805
SOURCE: IFS GREEN BUDGET Changes in Corporation tax announced in 2011 budget included