Rob Beale, partner a Morris Owen, give his views of today’s Budget.
“It was introduced as being tax neutral, with the Chancellor giving to certain sectors and taking from others.
There is a proposal for simplification of red tape for those running smaller businesses which will no doubt be welcomed. There was also a focus on reducing the full rate of Corporation Tax to make the UK more attractive to overseas businesses.
But it is disappointing that he did not mention changes to the capital allowance regime to encourage investment by businesses.
Tax avoidance is being tackled head on with specific measures to counter mechanisms used when people are buying expensive properties and the Chancellor indicated that general tax avoidance legislation will be introduced in 2013 to try to prevent some of the loopholes that people have historically used.
The key tax headlines are the focus on individuals and families with the future increases in the personal allowance taking more people out of the scope of tax and also changes to the way in which child benefit is to be phased out, which has to be welcomed as a reversal of this policy was never on the cards.
Finally, the change in 2013 for the highest rate of tax to be reduced from 50% to 45% seems to be more a headline point as by the Chancellor’s own figures, the cost of this is minimal when looking at the overall Government tax take.
