Alistair Darling gives drivers a break in this year’s bud - Car Rental News
Alistair Darling gives drivers a break in this year’s bud
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Car Rental News - 25/03/2010
Chancellor of the Exchequer Alistair Darling to phase in petrol rises
Chancellor of the Exchequer, Alistair Darling, has given drivers a break as he revealed in this year’s budget that planned rises on Petrol duty will be phased in. Rather than hitting drivers will increased costs straight away, the Labour Chancellor has promised to give away £1.4bn to tax payers, to be gradually clawed back in the years to come.
First-time buyers will also experience some relief as the stamp duty increase has been put on hold as well. The news will come as a relief for young people looking to get on the property ladder and drivers all over the country. Both have experienced unrelenting tax rises in recent years.
The UK’s finances are now looking fairly healthy for the coming year, with the modest handouts helping to boost the budget by £14.5bn. Britain is still home to the biggest peacetime deficit in the country’s history, however, but Labour MPs claim the burden would have been significantly heavier under a Conservative government.
Darling announced that the year’s deficit will be £11bn less than anticipated and that Britain’s finances could be as much as £100bn better off by 2012-2014. He went on to say that the current financial situation is not as bleak as it could be thanks to less unemployment than expected and an increase in consumer confidence.
Darling estimated at Christmas that national debt would peak at 78 per cent of Britain’s GDP, but the cost of interest on our debt will now be £3bn less as it reaches only 75 per cent of GDP. Darling said the figures were a product of the government’s success and that without prompt crunch action such as the bailout of Northern Rock, things could have been much worse.
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