George Osborne has unveiled the first fully Conservative budget in almost 20 years. A national living wage, a tax raid on buy-to-let landlords, the scrapping of student maintenance grants and a four-year freeze in working-age benefits were just some of the key changes.
According to the Guardian’s political correspondent Andrew Sparrow, the budget “will do much to bolster the Conservatives’ blue collar credentials”. But how will the changes affect you?
Here are some of the chancellor’s key announcements:
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A new national living wage to be introduced. It will apply to over-25s. It will start next year at £7.20, rising to £9 a year by 2020. 2.5 million people will receive a pay rise as result, Osborne says.
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Student maintenance grants will be replaced by loans from 2016/17. The maximum value will be increased to £8,200 and will only need to be paid back when people earn more than £20,000.
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Tax-free personal allowance to be raised to £11,000 next year. After that, the personal allowance will always rise in line with inflation.
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Benefits cap to be reduced to £23,000 in London, and to £20,000 elsewhere.
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Wealthy social housing tenants to pay market rents.
- From April 2017 £1m free of inheritance tax.
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Tax credits and universal credit will only support the first two children. After April 2017, people who have an additional child will not get extra help, and people who make a new claim will only get money for two children. There will be exceptions for multiple births. There will be similar changes in housing benefits.
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Mortgage tax relief for buy-to-let landlords to be restricted to the basic rate
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Apprenticeship levy to be imposed on all firms. Those that offer apprentices will get more out of this, in terms of funding for apprenticeships, than they put in.
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Permanent non-dom status to be abolished – from April 2017, anyone who has lived in the UK for 15 of the past 20 years will pay same level of tax as other UK citizens.
What do you think about the budget? How will the changes and policies affect your life? Share your stories in the comments or via GuardianWitness
