Chancellor Jeremy Hunt delivered his ‘Budget for Long Term Growth’ on Wednesday 6 March 2024. His speech promised ‘more investment, more jobs,
better public services and lower taxes’. Here’s a response from our Tax Consultant Kerrianne Naylor Wood:
“For the last few years, the pre-Budget bombast and boom has vastly overshadowed the ensuing announcement’s rather meek and mild content, which for the most part has been notable for its omissions rather than its inclusions.
This year, however, the Budget announcement has resulted in some significant changes and overhauls to current regimes, most notably, the reduction of Class 1 Primary NICs and Class 4 NIC for self-employed individuals and increases to the VAT registration and de-registration limits. Whilst our clients will most certainly welcome any kind of tax relief, the Budget crucially lacked exciting ideas to stimulate business growth. The announcements regarding investments mainly focussed on niche industries such as film production and operatic tours as opposed to construction and manufacturing, for example, or were located in other areas of the country such as Cambridge or the Vale of Glamorgan.
Our client base also includes a large number of landlords therefore the updates to property taxes is a key area of interest. It appears that with a sweeping stroke of a pen Mr Hunt has abolished some key tax reliefs enjoyed by landlords looking to incorporate such as Multiple Dwellings Relief (MDR) and the availability of Business Asset Disposal Relief (BADR) on sales of Furnished Holiday Lettings (FHLs). These changes have been mitigated slightly by the reduction of the higher rate of CGT from 28% to 24%, although landlords of FHLs will generally be out of pocket.
Another major change relates to the Non-Dom regime and whilst these changes will not impact many of our clients, my view is that although the announcement is dramatic in scope and will gain political currency, ultimately they will not generate significant revenue for the Exchequer as ultra high net worth taxpayers of this nature have the time – four years – and the means to put tax strategies in place to circumvent these rules.
Finally, we welcome Mr Hunt’s acknowledgement that the High Income Child Benefit Charge is unfair to many households – this has also undoubtedly been reinforced by recent case law – and we are pleased that consultation is underway to redress this.”
For more information on how the Budget may affect you or your business contact our tax team: taxteam@robson-laidler.co.uk
Kerrianne Naylor Wood, Tax Consultant. Robson Laidler Accountants.
Download the Spring Budget 2024 Summary Report here: Robson_Laidler_Accountants_Limited_BudgetSummary_Mar24