2005 Budget - reaction and discussion

This thread started for a bit of discussion on todays budget.

What do you think are the key points from Mr Brown's budget speech today?

The big ussue for me personally is the stamp duty threshold being raised to £120000, which I consider to be excellent news. This being because I intend to make my first house purchase in the summer, and now that all properties under £120000 in value are exempt from stamp duty, I will have roughly an extra grand in my pocket that would have otherwise gone to the govt.

A few people I've talked with think that as they were reviewing stamp duty, they should have reformed it totally, so that it is structured more like income tax, where you are only taxed on the amount over the threshold. I'm not sure that such a move would be neccessary, and as a prospective first-time-buyer, I think they way they've done it is spot on, as the 120k threshold should help to curb price rises in the first time buyer price bracket.

So, is this rellevant to you? any reaction?
Any other issues worthy of discussion - lets have 'em.

I thought the biggest deal of the budget was on the plans extending education. A genuine investment for the countries' future IMO.

I also liked the additional tax credit help aimed at low income families with kids.

Stamp duty was a headline grabber and it was nice it helps so many more of those at the bottom of the scale than the old 60k limit.

I also thought the stuff aimed at pensioners was politically very savy and totally blew away the last vestiges of any of the recent tory appeal to most pensioners who were genuinely 'floating voters', as opposed to the already convinced support of either party.

But I thought it was pretty moderate restrained stuff, full of little touches here and there but there'll be no recession looming on the horizon and maybe the lack of any big splash is to their credit.

There was also some stuff business will appreciate on reducing 'red tape' I suppose.

It's about time the UK had a gov that took a longer term view and hopefully the majority this lot have means they don't need to 'bribe' anyone with foolish short-term measures.

An interesting little budget calculator from the BBC here

however....

We don't calculate, for example, the new tax credits, company car taxation, or taxes on capital.

I'm not really that knowledgeable about about economic issues so I can't really give a strong opinion on the issue.