Mailwatch(ed) Forum

Actually, the amount from the £2m house tax is not as high as I thought. But that and gambling taxes will bring in about £1.5bn a year. I'm ok with that.

Hopefully this means that the government won't need to make any more changes (the ones made to new claims were pretty drastic already). Looks like Reeves/Kendall/Starmer may have been panicked by unnecessarily pessimistic forecasts. Hopefully now the Timms review can take place in a calmer atmosphere.

Although the notability reforms are causing ructions.

Nice to see Antonia back on Bluesky.

https://bsky.app/profile/antoniabance.b ... jy7ycuuk2j

The Weeping Angel wrote: ↑Wed Nov 26, 2025 1:54 pm Although the notability reforms are causing ructions.

Autocorrect has sabotaged you there, mate.

Gambling is an interesting one, because what can they do? Reduce free bets, lower odds so the profit is simply not there.

I suppose ramping up on those things it can control such as games and virtual betting, then again its probably where they pull the money in anyhow.

An aside from the Budget, but I really don't like this stuff, and I frequently said so when I used to post on The Guardian even though defending Priti Patel wasn't a popular position.

All these politicians have just as much right to their views on migration as on anything else.

This sounds as though it could have definitely been a lot worse.

They had the whip suspended because it was the King's Speech, Prem.

Tell us about your pal Corbyn's success is abolishing the cap.

mattomac wrote: ↑Wed Nov 26, 2025 2:20 pm Gambling is an interesting one, because what can they do? Reduce free bets, lower odds so the profit is simply not there.

I suppose ramping up on those things it can control such as games and virtual betting, then again its probably where they pull the money in anyhow.

They'll claw a lot back through lower RTP on online slots, things as you say they can control. Obviously even on horse racing and football they make money by the wheelbarrow every minute of every day regardless anyway, so they'll more than cope, despite their inevitable moaning.

I'm too busy weeping for people in gaffs worth over £2m having to pay a £2500+ council tax surcharge to care about much right now, how they will manage i don't know. I'm sure the Mail will let us all know how it's a bad idea and that rich people will emigrate with their wealth; that's their standard spew when the rich ever get even mildly, or in this case very mildly, hit with a request to contribute more money to society.

I think Local Housing Allowance has been frozen, but I'm not sure. That would be bad, and it was frozen last year.

Julia Davies of Patriotic Millionaires says something interesting.

The members of Patriotic Millionaires and I will continue to push our government for ambitious economic reform. The UK cannot afford any further piecemeal approach to the economy. While an annual wealth tax is not a panacea, it signals the kind of change required to put people first and address deep-rooted inequality. There is still time in this parliament to achieve this.

This is a fairly muted claim for a wealth tax, and I respect her for being more realistic about it than some politicians are. I don't support a wealth tax, but I'd be interested to hear what her other ideas are.

Another Guardian commenter is academic, Abi O'Connor.

Our housing system is a key driver of the gap between rich and poor in society. This is because council tax bands have not been recalibrated since 1991. Retaining this system reinforces regional inequality and ensures the most expensive homes are chronically undertaxed.

While increasing council tax on homes worth more than £2m is a small step in the right direction from this government, it lacks the ambition the country was promised. Genuine reform could be achieved by simply implementing proportional property tax, in which every home’s tax rate is set annually in line with its actual market value.

Amen to that. But when we were promised this "ambitious" approach? Did anyone in the General Election run on it? Maybe the Greens (to their credit), but it wasn't emphasized. I don't even recall anyone saying they'd revalue council tax bands. Lots of commentators seem to do this, have personal views (often good ones like here) which they project on to the government before pronouncing them a big let down who've failed to deliver on what they promised.

Business rates will be reduced for 750,000 retail, hospitality and leisure properties, which will be funded by an increase on premises worth more than £500,000.

The tax reduction will be paid for by an increase in taxes on properties worth £500,000 or more, like the warehouses used by online giants such as Amazon.

Amazon will have their accountants working late tonight to look for or create a loophole to avoid paying any rise, that's if they pay anything for warehouses now. It wouldn't surprise me if they had already registered themselves as a charity.

They'll struggle to avoid anything that's charged on the physical building, I'd have thought.

Opportunity cost seems to be the order of the day.

"Why didn't you do X...?". Well, why didn't they do any number of other things?

Fuck off, Ed Davey.

They're negotiating with the EU right now, as you well know. Growth is second in the G7.

This was a botched budget delivered by a chancellor who has diagnosed the disease, but refuses to administer the cure.
This government has chosen to reject the single biggest thing it could do to turbocharge economic growth and repair the £90bn Brexit black hole.
Labour was elected on a promise of tackling the cost of living crisis and growing the economy - and this is the second budget where it’s failed to do either. For millions of people struggling with higher bills, all this budget really offers is higher taxes.

Usual heavyweight analysis. Very progressive budget is "dire".

AOB wrote: ↑Wed Nov 26, 2025 4:44 pm

Business rates will be reduced for 750,000 retail, hospitality and leisure properties, which will be funded by an increase on premises worth more than £500,000.

The tax reduction will be paid for by an increase in taxes on properties worth £500,000 or more, like the warehouses used by online giants such as Amazon.

Amazon will have their accountants working late tonight to look for or create a loophole to avoid paying any rise, that's if they pay anything for warehouses now. It wouldn't surprise me if they had already registered themselves as a charity.

I actually applaud this, I did say small businesses should be helped out more... but yeah they will discover something to skip it.

I get billionaires, but why does she think bankers are undertaxed?

Where are these taxes she objects to going if not to spending on services? Engineers and tanker drivers are paid quite a bit more than the national average, as are quite a lot of health workers.