Budget 2025 – an unprecedented Budget
The run up to the Budget was unprecedented in many ways – so many briefings (and counter briefings), a lot of kite-flying, u-turns on policies which had not themselves been formally announced and then the release of the Office for Budget Responsibility’s report before the Chancellor even stood up to start her speech. We always […]
Budget 2025 – pension relief is sacrificed
Salary sacrifice arrangements have been about for many years and, although they have been tightened up, the ability to sacrifice salary in exchange for your employer making a pension contribution on your behalf has previously been preserved. So, what’s the benefit – well, pension contributions benefit from income tax relief, but not national insurance contributions. […]
Spring Budget 2024 – the pre-Election gamble
At what was likely to be the last fiscal event before the General Election, we expected a few surprises to be dropped in to woo the voters, although most of these were let out of the bag over the weekend in what seemed to be the most briefed budget ever known. But with so many […]
Spring Budget 2024 – tax cuts and rebalance
The tax giveaway… again? In what seemed somewhat like a moment of déjà vu, the Chancellor announced a further reduction to the rate of national insurance to add to that introduced at the Autumn Statement 2023. With effect from 6 April 2024, the main rate of Class 1 national insurance paid by employees and Class […]
Autumn Statement 2023 – Growth, growth, growth…
As ever, in the last couple of weeks there has been a huge amount of speculation about what may or may not be announced at the Autumn Statement 2023 – abolition of inheritance tax; increase in the inheritance nil rate band; a stamp duty land tax holiday; a cut in the rate of income tax… […]
Autumn Statement 2023 – Tax cut, complexity and uncertainty
It’s a tax cut, Jim, but not as we know it Having been told by successive Chancellors for as long as one can care to remember that ‘national insurance is not a tax’, it feels so wrong to claim that there has been a tax cut today – that said, to the ‘man on the […]
Autumn Statement 2023 – All change for the self-employed
The key change announced for the self-employed was the ‘headline’ abolition of Class 2 national insurance and the reduction in the rate of Class 4 national insurance, both with effect from 6 April 2024. Class 2 national insurance is a flat rate charged at £3.45 per week and is there to preserve entitlement to contributory […]
Autumn Statement 2022 – no rabbits pulled out of hats but plenty of fiscal drag
After the debacle of eight weeks ago, the announcements by the Chancellor today were never going be so radical as to cause concern in the markets, but we all knew that there would be some element of revenue raising, we just didn’t know which taxes would rise and by how much. On a positive note, […]
Autumn Budget 2022 – a step back in time
What a month, what a week, what a day! An emergency statement by the Chancellor this morning, in order to prevent further speculation and help settle the markets in advance of the fiscal statement due on 31 October 2022, has taken us back in time to where we were less than a month ago in […]