Budget 2010: Special supplement

Everything you need to know – but are afraid to ask – about the toughest Budget for decades

(Dave Brown)

The Speech

John Rentoul: The true meaning of the Chancellor's emergency budget

Taxation

Value Added Tax: Hike in VAT will hit consumers at the tills, in pubs and at the pump

Capital Gains Tax: Second-home owners are spared punitive rise

Household Finance

Lower income households: Increase in personal tax allowances for the poor offset by other measures

Higher income households: No escape for the rich from Conservative cuts

Pensioners: Support for old ‘still lowest in Western world’

Welfare

Benefits: £11bn of cuts ‘will push many households over the edge

Child benefits: Parents face three-year freeze on pay-outs

Environment

Michael McCarthy: The less said the better about the planet, but there are cuts to come

Public finances

Sean O'Grady: Chancellor gets away with it but pain is postponed

Business

Bank tax: Shares rise after levy is lighter than feared

Corporation tax: Government acts to help the private sector

Video games: Games industry slams tax relief pledge reversal

Excise Duty

Brewers toast reprieve for cider

Aviation

Air taxes to come under scrutiny

Monarchy

Queen’s Civil List payment frozen at £7.9m for 2010

Holdings

Osborne confirms public asset sale plans

Internet

£6 a year phone tax shelved

Comment

David Prosser: It is the poor who will contribute the most to repairing our finances

Simon Read: Mixed news for families, but the real pain lies ahead

Andy McSmith: The perils of the emergency Budget