| Tax |
| Income tax | - From April 2012 personal allowance will increase by £630 to £8105.
- This increase won't be restricted to basic rate tax payers so no one else will be pulled into the higher rate tax band.
- The 50% tax rate will be reviewed and potentially removed if it has not generated sufficient revenue.
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| National insurance | - Income tax & National Insurance may be merged to a single tax if it is viable to do so.
- However, this will not result in pensioners having to pay National Insurance.
- The 1% National Insurance increase scheduled for April 2011 will go ahead as planned.
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| Inheritance tax | - The Inheritance Tax Rate will be reduced by 10% for anyone who leaves 10% or more of their estate to charity.
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| Other tax | - From April 2012 the thresholds for Income Tax, National Insurance, ISAs and Inheritance Tax will increase by the CPI measure of inflation instead of by RPI.
- Taxes on owners of high value property will be reformed.
- Measures to clamp down on tax avoidance will be introduced.
- Income tax relief on the Enterprise Investment Scheme will increase from 20% to 30% in April, 2011.
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| Housing |
| First time buyers | - £250 million commitment has been made to help first time buyers.
- A new shared equity scheme - First Buy - will help 10,000 families to purchase a new build home.
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| Mortgage Support | |
| Council tax | - Every council across the UK has agreed to freeze council tax for the coming year.
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| Water bills | - Public money will be used to help cut water bills for customers in the South West of England.
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| Alcohol & Tobacco |
| Alcohol | - A reduced rate of tax will apply to low strength beers from 1st October, 2011.
- A higher rate of tax will be applied to high strength beers from this date.
- There will be no change to any other alcohol duty rates.
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| Tobacco | - Tobacco duty rates to increase by 2% above inflation.
- Tax on hand-rolled tobacco will increase by an additional 10%.
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| Transport |
| Fuel | - Fuel duty will be cut by 1p a litre from 6pm today (23rd March, 2011).
- The planned 1p increase in fuel duty scheduled for April will be pushed back a year.
- The subsequent inflation-linked rise scheduled for April 2012 will be pushed back until the following summer.
- A Fair Fuel Stabiliser will be introduced from tomorrow - fuel duty will go down when fuel prices increase, & go up when fuel prices fall.
- The fuel duty escalator will be scrapped for the rest of this Parliament.
- A rural fuel duty scheme will be piloted.
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| Approved mileage allowance | - Approved mileage allowance payments will increase to 45p a mile for the first 10,000 miles & 25p a mile thereafter.
- It will also be paid for volunteers travelling as passengers.
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| Road tax | - Vehicle Exercise Duty will increase by inflation only.
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| Trains | - £200 million will be invested in regional railways.
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| Flights | - The planned increase in air passenger duty will be delayed until next year.
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| Employment & Education |
| Employment | - A new start up scheme to support entrepreneurs - Start Up Britain - will be launched.
- 21 new enterprise zones will be introduced.
- Entrepreneur's Relief will be doubled to £10 million on 6th April.
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| Education | - 24 new university technical colleges will be set up.
- 100,000 places in new work experience schemes will be introduced.
- 50,000 apprenticeship places will be created over the next four years.
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| Pensions |
| State pension | - A new, single tier, flat rate pension based on contributions will be introduced subject to a consultation.
- This will be worth approximately £140 a week but it will take years to implement.
- Current pensioners won't be affected by the change.
- Plans to introduce automatic increases to the State Pension Age have been brought forward subject to review.
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| Public sector pensions | - Public sector workers will have to increase their pension contributions by approx. 3%.
- The government will consult on scrapping final salary pensions for public sector workers & replacing them with career average pension benefits.
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