The Budget

On 30 October, Chancellor Rachel Reeves delivered the first Labour Budget in 14 years and the first ever in the UK to be delivered by a female Chancellor.

There was a lot contained in her speech and also in the detailed documents released following her statement. We have summarised everything into a handy pdf to help you understand how this Budget affects you, your family and your business.

If you have any questions please get in touch for advice.

From the archives

March 2024 – The Chancellor’s Spring Budget

With an election looming, Jeremy Hunt delivered what he hopes will be a vote winning Budget with cuts to National Insurance and freezes to alcohol and fuel duty but will people feel the difference in their pockets? With changes announced to non-dom tax, Stamp Duty and Capital Gains Tax, there is a little bit to unpack, so we have provided a helpful summary of the announcements illustrating how it will affect you and your business.

Download our Autumn statement summery 

November 2023 – The Chancellor’s Autumn Statement

Jeremy Hunt delivered his Autumn Statement on 22 November, announcing cuts to National Insurance and measures to stimulate business investment and growth. We have created a summary of the main announcements, so you can understand how they affect you and your business.

Download our Autumn Statement summary.

March 2023 – The Chancellor’s Spring Budget

Against a slightly more optimistic forecast than of late from the Office for Budget Responsibility, the Chancellor made his first Budget speech with measures aimed at stimulating economic growth. His key focus was on boosting the workforce and business investment. However, with official forecasts showing that households are facing a record squeeze on living standards over the next two years with increasing tax burden and cost of living, will he achieve his aims? Download a copy of our budget summary to find out what it means for you and your business.

November 2022 – The Chancellor’s Autumn Statement

Following his acknowledgement that the UK is now in a recession, the Chancellor addressed how he plans to rebuild the economy and fill the so-called “financial black hole”.  The announcement contained freezes on many tax thresholds and allowances, council tax rises and cuts to the previously announced energy support. There was some support for the more vulnerable in society with means-tested benefit and pension increases in line with inflation, and an increase in the national minimum wage. The Chancellor also increased the windfall tax on energy companies. Click here to download our Autumn Statement Summary 2022

October 2022 – The Chancellor’s reversal of the mini-budget

Three weeks after the mini-budget, and after huge turmoil, a reversal of most of the elements of the growth plan and a new statement planned for 31 October. This is now being referred to as the Medium-Term Fiscal Plan, where the Chancellor will publish the government’s fiscal rules alongside an Office for Budget Responsibility forecast, together with what are described as ‘further measures’. Click here to download our guide to the reversal of the mini-budget. 

March 2022 – Spring Statement

The Chancellor Rishi Sunak presented the Spring Statement on 23rd March 2022. In his speech he set out the Government’s tax plan in both the short and the medium term, to support the UK economy, businesses and families.

The key measures include:

• an increase to the National Insurance Primary Threshold for Class 1 NICs and the Lower Profits Limit for Class 4 NICs from 6 July 2022, aligning it with the equivalent income tax personal allowance which is set at £12,570 per annum
• from April 2022, self-employed individuals with profits between the Small Profits Threshold (SPT) and the Lower Profit Limit will not pay Class 2 NICs, while allowing individuals to be able to continue to build National Insurance credits
• the Employment Allowance will be increased by £1,000 from 6 April 2022 to £5,000, which will benefit around 495,000 businesses
• an immediate reduction in duty on diesel and petrol from 6pm on 23 March 2022, by 5 pence per litre, for 12 months.

As always, if you are concerned about anything, please speak to your usual Hillier Hopkins adviser or contact us and we’ll be happy to put you through to one of our friendly experts. Download summary

March 2021

Tax measures:

• A super-deduction for companies investing in new plant and machinery
• A time extension of the temporary increase to the SDLT nil rate band for residential property in England and Northern Ireland
• An extension to the temporary 5% reduced rate of VAT for certain supplies
• A temporary increase in the carry-back period for business losses
• An increased rate of corporation tax from 2023

Other measures:

• A new mortgage guarantee scheme
• Extension to the Job Retention Scheme
• A Self-Employment Income Support Scheme fourth and fifth grant
• An extension to the business rates holiday in England
• Previously announced measures:
• A cap on the amount of R&D tax credit paid to a loss-making small or medium-sized enterprise
• New rules apply to off-payroll working payments made for services provided on or after 6 April 2021

Some Budget proposals may be subject to amendment in the 2021 Finance Act. You should contact us before taking any action as a result of the contents of this summary. Download summary.

September 2020 – Winter Economy plan

As COVID-19 continues to cause disruption to our lives and businesses, Rishi has announced further support today with aim of protecting jobs and helping cash strapped businesses. Here is a brief summary of the announcements and you can find more detail on all of the support packages below in a series of help sheets on our Guide to support page.

• Job support scheme –  This will replace the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme which comes to an end next month. It can be used to top up wages of staff whose working hours need to be reduced because of reduced demand or restrictions to trading. The Government will subsidise employees’ wages up to a maximum of 22% (capped at £697.92 per month) for 6 months. To qualify, employees would need to be working at least 33% of their normal hours.
• VAT cut extended – The 15% VAT cut for hospitality and tourism industries has been extended until 31st March 2021.
• VAT deferral repayment extended –  If you deferred your VAT payments earlier this year and were concerned about the impact the repayment would have on your cashflow come March 2021, you can now spread the repayments over 11 months interest free.
• Help for Self-Assessment taxpayers – You can now extend your tax bill over 12 months from 31 January 2021.
• Flexible repayments for support loans – Application deadlines for CBILS and Bounce Back Loans have been extended to the 30th November 2020. The government has also announced changes to repayment terms to help cashflow.
• Self Employment Income Support Scheme extended – This scheme has now been extended until 30 April 2021 with further grants of 20% of average monthly profits available.

July 2020 – Summer Economic update

On 8th July the Chancellor Rishi Sunak announced some new measures aimed at helping the country’s economic recovery.

• Stamp Duty Land Tax (SDLT) holiday – A temporary Stamp Duty Land Tax (“SDLT”) holiday was announced. It started immediately covering the period from 8 July 2020 until 31 March 2021 inclusive. Read more.
• Bonus for retaining furloughed workers – Following a seemingly endless stream of redundancy warnings in recent weeks, The Chancellor today announced an incentive for comhttps://hillierhopkins.co.uk/insights/stamp-duty-land-tax-sdlt-holiday/panies to bring employees back from furlough rather than make them redundant. Read more.
• VAT reduced from 20% to 5% for the hospitality sector – The Chancellor has announced that VAT will be reduced from 20% to 5% on: Accommodation (which includes hotels, B&Bs, camp and caravan sites), food from cafes, bars, pubs, restaurants (including hot takeaways), and attractions (including cinemas, theme parks and zoos). This will be effective for 6 months and ends on 12th January 2021 (as of 24th September the Chancellor announced an extension on the VAT cut to 31 March 2021). Read more.

March 2020 the COVID-19 Budget

Government pledges £30bn to support UK through Coronavirus including these temporary measures for businesses:

• For companies with less than 250 employees, the government will refund Statutory Sick Pay costs for up to 14 days.
• HMRC will defer tax payments for business and self-employed – and 2000 extra staff for their “time to pay” helpline.
• New temporary coronavirus business interruption loans of up to £1.2m for small businesses – government will guarantee of 80% of the loan
• Retail, leisure or hospitality businesses with a rateable value of below £51K, will pay no business rates for the next 12 months
• A review of the long term future of business rates will be launched
• Providing small business that qualify for small business rate relief will have access to a £3000 cash grant per business.

Taxation announcements:

• Reduction in lifetime limit of entrepreneurs relief from £10m – £1m.
• R&D expenditure credit increased from 12%-13%. (This is for R&D RDEC claims)
• Structures and buildings allowance increased from 2% – 3%
• Increase employment allowance to £4000
• Businesses who qualify under the small business rates relief are now eligible for a £3k grant from the Government
• From 1 April 2021 a new non-UK resident SDLT 2% surcharge is being introduced for purchasers of residential property in England and Northern Ireland.

Download our 2020 Budget summary