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Jan 15, 2025 | 
law360.com | Christopher Griesedieck |David SMith |David Smith
By Christopher Griesedieck and David Smith ( January 15, 2025, 5:59 PM EST) -- On Dec. 23, President Joe Biden signed the National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal year 2025.[1] The law authorizes $895.2 billion for national defense discretionary programs and will shape U.S. defense priorities, from military readiness to emerging technologies.[2]... Law360 is on it, so you are, too.
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Dec 10, 2024 | 
thetimes.com | David SMith |David Smith
It has been six weeks since Rachel Reeves’s budget, and it is still making the wrong sort of headlines, which must be some sort of record. There used to be a rule of thumb that budgets which get a hammering on the day often look good six months later. However, the October 30 budget will likely still be generating bad headlines six months on, particularly as that will coincide with its biggest tax hike, the increase in employers’ national insurance (NI), coming into force.
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Nov 26, 2024 | 
thetimes.com | David SMith |David Smith
The chancellor was under pressure from day one, criticised for unpopular tax increases at a time when the economy was clearly weakening, interest rates were punitive and inflation remained too high for comfort. A low point came with a budget that was widely condemned by economists and the business community. This is not, you may have guessed, Rachel Reeves, though aspects of it clearly apply to her baptism of fire as chancellor.
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Nov 12, 2024 | 
thetimes.com | David SMith |David Smith
One of Oscar Wilde’s most famous quotes, though I must admit I was introduced to it by Monty Python’s Flying Circus, is: “There is only one thing in life worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about.”Rachel Reeves and her budget late last month are certainly being talked about, rather a lot, even taking in Paul Johnson’s interesting view here a couple of days ago that in terms of tax reform and answering the big questions on public spending it was a non-event.
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Nov 2, 2024 | 
thetimes.com | David SMith |David Smith
Today I want to take as my text 38.2 and 44.5. No, these are not biblical chapters and verses, but two very significant numbers among the barrage we have been subjected to in recent days. The first is what is known as the tax burden — taxes as a percentage of gross domestic product (GDP). The second is public spending, again relative to GDP. I will explain their significance in a moment.
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Oct 16, 2024 | 
thetimes.com | David SMith |David Smith
After a rocky start, things have been going the government’s way. Last week’s drop in inflation to 1.7 per cent paves the way for further interest rate cuts from the Bank of England, starting next month. And although official labour market figures are clouded by data uncertainty, the unemployment rate has fallen to 4 per cent. Economists have something called the misery index, which is calculated by adding the unemployment and inflation rates together.
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Oct 12, 2024 | 
thetimes.com | David SMith |David Smith
There are only two more Sundays to go after this until the October 30 budget, which makes it sound a bit too much like Christmas, and debates are raging on several fronts. Many are about tax but also whether, after a rocky start, the government can generate some growth optimism and make a reality of what a spokesman said a few days ago would be “the most pro-growth Treasury in history”.
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Oct 5, 2024 | 
thetimes.com | David SMith |David Smith
It is easy to forget, amid the many distractions of recent weeks, that when the new government was elected a few months ago, it put growth at the top of its economic agenda. Since then, that message, and the ambitious target of putting the UK at the top of the G7 growth league — something that the Tories were claiming to have achieved in the early months of this year — has been rather muted. Growth is important, indeed essential.
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Oct 1, 2024 | 
thetimes.com | David SMith |David Smith
A big event is coming up at the end of the month and, alongside the Christmas items which I’m afraid are competing hard for shelf space in our stores, a lot of people are getting ready for Halloween. For many people, though, a scarier event is looming the day before. The October 30 budget, announced by Rachel Reeves more than two months ago, has become a huge black cloud on the horizon. Everybody in business I talk to has concerns about what will be announced then.
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Aug 27, 2024 | 
thetimes.com | David SMith |David Smith
When, just a month ago, Rachel Reeves announced the removal of winter fuel payments for pensioners not on pension credit, saying “this is not a decision I wanted to make”, my first thought was that this was both bold and seemed to make sense. Why not target help on those most in need of it and make much-needed savings? I was, I admit, thinking like an economist, or a Treasury official, many of whom are indeed economists.
