MILLIONS FACING A HUGE HIT

BRITS will be blitzed by the biggest tax hikes since World War Two with household incomes and living standards nose-diving.

Chancellor Jeremy Hunt painted the bleak picture as he unveiled £30billion of spending cuts and £24bn in tax hikes in his bombshell Autumn Statement.

He argued that “difficult decisions” were needed to fill a financial “black hole” of £54bn.

Hunt announced that a freeze on personal income tax and national insurance thresholds will last until 2028. It will see 3.6million paying tax for the first time, while 2.6m more will pay the higher rate in five years’ time.

The 45p top tax rate was cut from £150,000 to £125,000, catching another 250,000 earners.

Watchdog the Office for Budget Responsibility predicts disposable incomes will fall 7% in the next two years – the biggest drop on record.

It also warned that Brexit would continue to have a “significant adverse impact” on UK trade.

In a small piece of good news, state pensions and benefits are to rise in April in line with inflation. Schools will get an extra £2.3bn per year and the NHS an extra £3.3bn a year.

● THE national living wage for over-23s is to rise 9.7% to an hourly rate of £10.42 from April.

THERE have been weeks of warnings that the Autumn Statement was going to be bleak.

But no-one was ready for quite how grim it would be.

Millions will be clobbered by the tens of billions of tax hikes and spending cuts unveiled by Chancellor Jeremy Hunt.

And this on top of higher energy bills. There was little to cheer among the doom and gloom.

Yes, of course more money for hospitals and schools is welcome, along with the increased windfall tax. But the outlook is extremely grim. We’re already in a recession, with the economy set to shrink further next year.

The UK is facing the biggest drop in living standards on record, of 7%.

And the squeeze is set to last for years, with many of the cuts not scheduled until later.

We’re all going to feel poorer – or at least, most of us are.

No doubt the bankers, non-doms and private equity managers were cheering yesterday.

All in all, it was a day we’d be best off to forget.