Your bit-by-bit budget guide.
PERSONAL TAX
- Personal tax allowance to be raised to £10,500 next year; £800 average savings
- Higher rate threshold for 40p income tax to rise from £41,450 to £41,865 next month and then by further 1% to £42,285 next year
- Transferable tax allowance for married couples to rise to £1,050
TAX
- 15% stamp duty on homes worth more than £500,000 bought through companies
- Inheritance tax waived for emergency services personnel who 'give their lives protecting us'
- VAT waived on fuel for air ambulances and inshore rescue boats
- Fuel duty rise planned for September cancelled
PENSIONS AND SAVINGS
- All tax restrictions on pensioners' access to pension pots removed and tax on cash removed on retirement cut from 55% to 20%
- Reform of taxation of defined contribution pensions to help 13 million people from March 27
- Abolition of 10p starting rate of tax on income from savings
ECONOMY
- GDP growth forecast to be 2.7% this year, then 2.3%, 2.6%, 2.6% and 2.5% in following years - making UK economy £16 billion bigger than predicted.
- Deficit revised down to 6.6% this year, and forecast to fall in following years before going into surplus of 0.2% in 2018/19
- Borrowing expected to be £108 billion this year - £12 billion less than forecast
- Debt revised down to 74.5% of GDP this year; then predicted to peak at 78.7% in 2015/16 and fall to 74.2% by 2018
JOBS
- OBR forecasts 1.5 million more jobs over the next five years and earnings to grow faster than inflation
- Welfare cap set at £119 billion for 2015/16, rising to £127 billion by 2018/19, only state pension and cyclical unemployment benefits excluded
ENERGY
- £7 billion package to cut energy bills includes £18 per ton cap on carbon price support, saving medium-sized manufacturers £50,000 and families £15 a year
- Compensation scheme for energy intensive industries extended four years to 2019/20; £1 billion to protect manufacturers from cost of green levies
LEISURE
- Tobacco duty to rise by 2% above inflation
- Alcohol duty escalator scrapped
- Duty on spirits and ordinary cider frozen. Beer duty cut by 1p a pint
- Duty on fixed-odds betting terminals increased to 25%
- Bingo duty halved to 10%.
- 20% tax relief for theatre productions
INVESTMENT
- £270 million guarantee approved for the Mersey Gateway bridge.
- Support to build 200,000 homes.
- Additional £140 million made available for repairs and maintenance to flood defences
BUSINESS
- Business rate discounts and enhanced capital allowances in enterprise zones extended for three more years
- Research and development tax credit for loss-making small businesses raised from 11% to 14.5%
- Annual investment allowance doubled to £500,000 and extended to the end of 2015
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