DON'T believe the hype - Chancellor Gordon Brown's Budget income tax cuts' will in reality raise an extra £500 million for the Treasury, warn experts.

Headline- grabbing moves such as cutting the basic rate of income tax by 2p to 20p will be funded by stealth taxes elsewhere.

Part of it will come from axing the 10p initial rate of income tax.

From this April you will pay 10p per pound on the first £2,230 you earn after your personal tax allowance - but from April 2008 that will rise to 20p per pound.

Bournemouth University Business School senior lecturer in tax Richard Teather said: "As usual with Gordon Brown, the bad news was hidden away, and the tax will be clawed back.

"The 2p reduction in the basic rate will reduce taxes by £9.5 billion, but the increase in the 10p rate will raise £8.5 billion and the National Insurance changes a further £1.5 billion.

"Only Gordon Brown could dare try to spin a £500 million tax increase into a tax cut!"

Drivers of gas-guzzling cars will also be hit by the much-trailed hike in road tax to £300 then £400.

Among those to be hit by the higher rate of road tax for 4x4s will be Schools Minister and South Dorset MP Jim Knight.

"The thing that is going to hit me the most is going to be the road tax," he said.

"I have a 4x4 to tow my horsebox. I have two horses," added Mr Knight, who has converted his 4x4 to run on LPG to save money.

Award-winning Ferndown mortgage broker Debbie Boyes said: "Many of the tax incentives will not come into effect until at least 2008 - call me a cynic, but might these coincide with an election?"

Nick Fernyhough of Bournemouth chartered accountants Saffery Champness said: "It had the feel of a pre-election Budget, with some of the measures looking specifically designed to put David Cameron on the back foot, and to boost the polls."

Poole chartered accountants Mazars said the Budget had done "very little" for local pensioners, who were asset rich but cash poor.

Mazars tax manager Linda Broomfield said: "Those with expensive homes yet small pensions - and there are many in Bournemouth and Poole - will still struggle to pay their council tax bills.

"The suggested increase in pension allowance and pension credits will do little to help alleviate the grief they face in paying such huge council tax bills."