Exact date of Spring Budget 2024 revealed with tax cuts & updates on cigarettes & fuel expected – will you be affected?
RISHI Sunak today opened the door to an early election as it was announced the Spring Budget will happen on March 6.
Chancellor Jeremy Hunt is expected to unleash a wave of tax cuts in a final bid to turn the polls around.
No10 is understood to be weighing up slashing inheritance tax all together.
And there will be a big focus on helping struggling families onto the housing ladder.
Michael Gove told The Times that among options “definitely” being considered are a resurrection of the Help to Buy scheme and much longer fixed-term mortgages.
Help to Buy was started in 2013 but shut to new house hunters last year.
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It offered them a government loan of up to 40 per cent of the purchase price with no interest for five years.
Having previously ruled out scrapping stamp duty, the Treasury could look again at the £10bn idea.
The PM will face huge pressure from motorists across Britain and The Sun’s Keep it Down campaign to ensure fuel duty stays frozen for a 13th year.
And pub landlords will argue for an extension to keeping booze taxes stagnant beyond the current expiry date of August 2024.
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In bad news for smokers, as is standard each year fags will rise by two per cent plus the rate of inflation.
After a short break for Christmas Tory MPs rapidly shifted into campaign gear, voicing their tax cuts of choice ahead of the Budget.
During last year’s Tory leadership race, the PM pledged to slash the basic rate of income tax from 20 to 19 per cent in 2024.
He also vowed to bring income tax down to 16p in the pound by the end of 2029.
A 1p cut in the basic rate would save individuals an average of £377 each year.
Conservative backbenchers, particularly in the Red Wall, warned that new tax cuts should benefit low and middle-income earners first and foremost.
Former Cabinet minister Simon Clarke said: “What matters most right now is easing the burden of the cost of living.
“The best and most Conservative way of doing that would be to cut taxation on working hard - namely income tax.
“A direct boost to household finances and a clear incentive to support choosing work over welfare.”
Former Minister Neil O’Brien added: “People most want to cut taxes that fall on low to middle earners and council tax and VAT.”
Responding to the new Budget date, Labour’s Shadow Financial Secretary to the Treasury, James Murray, said: “The next Budget will come after fourteen years of economic failure under the Conservatives that have left working people worse off.
“Nothing Rishi Sunak and Jeremy Hunt do in March can repair the damage they have done to our economy.”
