Key Budget measures

The following is a quick-reference guide to the main points of the March 17 Budget.

• For families where someone works full-time there is a guaranteed income of at least £180 a week.

  To the same working family a guarantee that no income tax at all will be paid on earnings below £220 a week.

• Tax on spirits unchanged

• Beer up 1p a pint

• Wine up 4p a bottle

• Tax on cigarettes up 20p a packet

• Unleaded petrol up 4.4p a litre

• Leaded petrol up 4.9p a litre

• Diesel up 5.5p a litre

• Car road tax frozen at £150

• Road tax for smaller, cleaner cars cut by £50

• Employers' National Insurance scrapped on earnings below £81 a week from April 1999

• A starting rate of income tax at 10p will be introduced "when the time is right to do so"

• A new tax credit for working people with disabilities starting in October 1999

• Stamp duty raised to 2% above £250,000 and 3% above £500,000

• No change in mortage relief, Miras

• An additional £500m for the National Health Service, £250m for education and £500m for public transport over three years

• No limit on the amount people can transfer from the existing tax-free investment schemes, Peps and Tessas, into new Individual Savings Accounts, Isas

• The limit of cash holding for the first year of Isas raised to £3,000.

• The threshold for inheritance tax rose £8,000 to £222,000

• Landfill tax up from £7 to £10 per tonne

• Advanced Corporation Tax abolished from April next year

• Larger companies to pay Corporation Tax in instalments - cut by 1p to 30p from April 1999

• Capital Gains Tax for investors holding non-business assets who invest for 10 years cut from 40p to 24p

• For business investment capital gains tax cut from 40p to 10p

• First year capital allowances for small and medium companies set at 40%

• £50m made available to universities through a venture capital fund

The Budget speech in full at the Treasury site