The word on the street is compromise. And rises.

Except for the millions of low-paid people who may be freed from paying any income tax by the coalition government. The threshold for income tax could be increased from its current level of £6,475 to £10,000. That would remove 3.6m people from having to pay any income tax…and reduce government revenue by £17 billion.

Meanwhile, high earners may lose pension tax breaks and the Tory plan to raise the threshold for inheritance tax from its current level of £325,000 per person to £1m will not go ahead in the current Parliament.

And investors and others selling non-business assets that have increased in value may well be walloped with higher Capital Gains Tax – expected to more than double from its current rate of 18 per cent. There are hopes that entrepreneurs will be entitled to some sort of exclusion…or we might just run out of them.

So life’s about to get a whole lot more expensive for the rich and cheaper for the poor.