Taxing more to cut the debt.
How the UK is trying to deal with its spending.
It's World Business Express from the BBC World Service.
I'm Leanna Byrne.
In Australia, two teenagers are taking on the country's ban on under-16s using social media.
And Iran is trying to tackle its cheap petrol problem.
The UK's government has raised taxes to an all-time high.
The tax rises worth $34 billion came in after last year's budget put up taxes by $53 billion.
And that money will be put towards reducing the country's debts.
Here's Britain's Finance Minister, Chancellor Rachel Reeves.
Our net financial debt this year will be £2.6 trillion, 83% of GDP, meaning that today...
One in every £10 that government spends is on debt interest.
So what are the big takeaways for everyday people?
The big takeaway for me, though, is on landlords.
Another 2% increase in the tax that they pay.
I just worry that it's going to break some people.
Well, we're really delighted actually, by some of the announcements in the budget today, and particularly the removal of the two-child limit.
It's not very good at the moment, I'm afraid.
People, the working, they're getting nothing in return for it.
Everything's gone up.
Housing, bills, everything.
It's shocking.
Now to talk us through what has gone up for Britain's, our economics correspondent, Andrew Verity, comes to us live from the Prime Minister's office's Downing Street in London.
Andrew, what were the big announcements?
Well, the big announcement, well, they were all really a big freeze.
It's freezing cold here in Downing Street in central London and they were freezing, for example, rail fares, so people wouldn't have to pay more for that prescription.
Drug charges.
But they were also freezing the amount you could earn before you start paying tax.
Now, that used to rise with inflation.
Because they've been freezing it now for years.
It's equivalent to adding three and a half pence to the 20p rate of income tax that people are paying.
And over the years, it will take 26 billion, rising to 30 billion.
That may fix the public finances.
But that money going into the exchequer, for the chancellor, for the finance minister, Rachel Reeves is, of course, money going out taxpayers.
Can you categorize this into kind of winners and losers, perhaps?
Yeah well, there's some winners.
The winners are the grey votes, the pensioners, who are going to see their pensions rise by 48.
That's faster than the rate of inflation, and that's because of a sort of guarantee that the government offers here, called the triple lock.
So they're doing okay.
Other people who will win slightly are those paying energy bills.
They'll no longer have to pay for those people in poverty through their bills.
That subsidy will be paid for from general taxation.
So there are a few winners there.
Losers rich people who've got houses over £2 million and they'll pay an additional £2500 a year surcharge or, if they're more than £5 million, £7500.
But unfortunately there aren't that many properties like that, so it's not going to raise very much money about £400 million.
So, although this is tax raising, most of the taxes are going to fall on ordinary taxpayers as opposed to the wealthy.
Okay.
Andrew Verity, thank you so much for joining us.
I've also got Ross Mould from AJ Bell with us.
Ross, something surreal happened before the budget was released.
The Chancellor was due to make her announcement.
The UK's economic forecaster actually released the budget by accident.
Did that move markets?
It did.
The stock market stumbled a little bit as it wondered whether there were any nasty surprises out there.
And maybe somebody was trying to be naughty and bury those nasty surprises or get them out of the way.
Before the Chancellor started speaking.
But it seems to have been an accident.
There's now an inquiry, and I probably shouldn't say too much more than that until we find out exactly how it happened.
Absolutely.
You don't need to say anything more.
Well, did investors like what they saw?
That's what I want to know.
Stock market flat, pound up a little bit, government borrowing costs down a little bit.
I think Finance Minister Reeves will take that as a win, win, win.
Absolutely.
What do they like?
They like the fact.
There were no nasty surprises apart from the early release of the economic forecasts.
They like the fact that yes, there were tax increases, but that it was calibrated with spending, and the Chancellor is sticking to her fiscal rules and he's trying to get debt as a percentage of GDP down.
And they also like the fact that some of the moves on taxation and keeping rail fares flat and pushing down on fuel bills is slightly disinflationary.
That may give the Bank of England scope to cut interest rates, either at its next meeting in December or sometime next year.
Is it fair to say that, when it comes to investors, what taxpayers don't like to see actually investors do like to see?
There's an element of truth in that.
It is certainly for bond investors.
If a government is raising more in tax, it means it's easy for the government to pay the interest on their bills, on their borrowings, and then repay the money back at the time.
So yes, from that perspective, very definitely.
This one was quite interesting.
The UK allows you to save £20,000.
That's $26,000 tax-free.
But now they're encouraging people to put some of the 8,000 of that to go towards investing.
How does that work?
And is that an interesting one from your perspective?
It is.
It's going to happen in a couple of years' time.
And there is no guarantee that savers will put that extra 8,000 sterling into the stock market.
They may find other alternatives which are a cash equivalent, like government premium bonds to savings.
It's not guaranteed to flood into the stock market.
But what the finance minister is trying to achieve is get money going to companies so they can invest in research, in capital investment in plant and employees to get the economy going.
It's a bit of an indirect route, but it is a route.
They want retail investors, essentially.
They do, and the UK stock market has lagged its global peers for some time, though it's still trading very close to all-time highs.
Again, there are more direct ways of getting money into the economy through tax credits or through research and development or spending or energy or transport infrastructure, but it is a way of trying to get money to flow.
Ross Mulde, thank you so much.
Australia, two 15-year-olds are taking their government to court over a new law that bans anyone under 16 from using social media.
Noah Jones and Macy Nayland, supported by a campaign group, have launched a high court challenge just days before the law is due to effect, on the 10th of December.
Iran is bringing in higher fuel price, but only in certain situations.
From December, if you're using an emergency fuel card instead of your smart card, you get 60 litres a month for about one and a half cents, and an extra 100 litres for roughly three cents a litre.
Behran Tajdeen, economics correspondent for BBC Persian, explained to me why fuel there is so cheap.
Iran has some of the cheapest petrol prices in the world.
Partly at least, due to the fact that the government is the sole supplier and the one that sets the price.
And for more than a quarter of a century it has become a political issue inside Iran that whoever is in power wants to increase the price price of petrol.
But whoever is in the parliament is resisting that and always calling it inflationary.
We have kind of ended up in a situation that a country that has some of the largest oil and gas reserves in the world is, according to the government, importing around 20 million litres of petrol every day and selling it far below the price that the government has paid to people, just because no one wants to touch this issue with a barge pole.
From everything that you've told me, that just does not sound sustainable in any way.
So they've brought in this price increase.
Now, percentage-wise, it's not a huge amount for people to pay for petrol.
It is not in global terms, but inflation in Iran has been running high for a very very, very long time, in double digits.
For people who have cars, for most of them, the price of petrol is tiny compared to a lot of stuff.
Filling your whole tank of petrol is cheaper than buying gas.
A packet of crisps and a bottle of fizzy drink.
It's not going to cause a huge lot of trouble in terms of economic hardship for most people, but it is still one more thing that is going up in prices.
Is this going to solve the problem, though?
Not at all.
If the government manages to reduce the consumption of petrol or increase the money it gets for petrol, It could help a little bit, but it is tiny compared to the deficit that it is facing.
That was Behran Tajdeen, economics correspondent for BBC Persian.
And that's it from World Business Express.
From the BBC World Service, I'm Leanna Byrne.
Thanks so much for listening.
