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allowances:
Income tax personal allowances increased by £80 to £4,615 for 2002/03
for those under 65. Up £110 to £6,100 for people aged 65-74, and to £6,370
for those aged 75 plus. Married couple's allowance up £100 to £5,465 (over
75s up to £5,535). Tax allowances frozen and National Insurance contributions
threshold frozen in 2003/04 except for pensioners' allowances.
Tax
bands: Starting rate (10 per cent) £0-£1,920; basic rate (22 per
cent) £1,921 - £29,900; higher rate (40 per cent) over £29,900.
Government
Spending
Health:
43 per cent rise in NHS spending over next five years equivalent
of £40bn. Health spending to increase by 7.4 per cent a year.
Education:
Direct payments to secondary schools to rise to £114,000 this year.
Direct payments to primary schools to go up to £39,300.
Crime:
£280 million extra for helping fight against crime.
Other
measures: Tax breaks for amateur sports clubs. Review of tax rules
for foreign domiciled individuals living in the UK. Tax royalty on North
Sea oil to be abolished.
Families
New
child tax credit: From April 2003, providing one system of income-related
support for families with children. Families with yearly incomes of
£58,000 or less will receive help. Those earning up to £66,000 will
receive some help in the child's first year.
For
the first child, universal child benefit and the child tax credit will
provide £54.25 a week to all families with incomes less than £13,000.
Those earning up to £50,000 are guaranteed £26.50 a week. Families with
incomes up to £58,000 will get at least £15.38.
The
new credit will include some people currently excluded from all but
child benefit, such as students and student nurses.
Working
families' tax credit: Extended to single people. Increases in the
child allowances in income support and jobseeker's allowance by £3.50
a week from October 2002. Minimum income for working families of £237
a week.
Child
care: Families with two children earning up to £35,000 to get up
to £50 a week childcare help (£54.25 for the first child and £92.75
for a two-child family). Increase in flat rate of maternity pay and
allowance to £75 a week from April 2002 and then to £100 a week from
April 2003. Maternity pay extended from 18 to 26 weeks from April 2003.
Fathers granted two weeks' paid paternity leave at same flat rate as
Statutory Maternity Pay from April 2003.
Working
single disabled people: Guaranteed £194 a week.
Motoring
Fuel
Duty: Freeze in all fuel duties, including ultra-low sulphur petrol
and diesel, lowering duty rates by around 1p per litre in real terms.
Vehicle
excise duty: Cut by £30 for the least polluting cars and £35 for
the most fuel-efficient motorcycles.
Excise
duties/Sundry taxes
Alcohol
and tobacco: Duty on wine, all spirits and most beer frozen for
the year, but duty halved for small brewers, equivalent to 14p off a
pint. Alcopops to be taxed at same rate as spirits. Taxes on cigarettes
up by 6p per packet of 20.
Pensioners
Pensions:
To rise by £3 a week to £75.50 for single people, and by £4.80 a
week to £120.70 for couples. Five million pensioners to gain from pension
credit of about £400 a year. For 2003/04 elderly taxpayers will be able
to set the first £6,610 of income against tax, and £6,740 if 75 or over.
Winter
fuel allowance of £200 for every year of this Parliament, and free TV
licences for over-75s retained.
Housing
Tax
avoidance: Loopholes on stamp duty to be closed.
Stamp
duty: Abolished for business transactions in poor areas.
Capital
Gains Tax
Threshold
increased from £7,500 to £7,700.
Inheritance
Tax
Threshold
level at which estates become eligible for inheritance tax increased
from £242,000 to £250,000.
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