Well, that was the Budget. Despite the predictions I thought it was mild and, inevitably, nowhere near the armageddon that was predicted. If you do think this one was bad, you should have been around for the 1985 to 1988 Budgets: they were rough. unless you were very wealthy of course in which case they were from heaven.
The increase in employers NICs combined with increases in the minimum wage will be tough for some businesses and careful analysis will be needed to ensure that anything that might be unintended is brought to the attention of government during the Finance Bill process. It’s not my recollection that lots of businesses went bust when employers NIC was even more substantially increased than now or VAT was doubled in the 1980s.
Likewise with APR, it seems clear that there is a lot of support for this change from the public (not from the wealthy landowners obviously but that is to be expected). Again however it will be important to be alert to unintended effects since although APR remains a very valuable tax relief, given the number of farms, it seems inevitable that some hard cases may emerge. It could be a boom time for farming and business reorganisation tax specialists.
The non-dom changes have generated even more angst than before the Budget (if that was possible). Only those individuals with excluded property trusts will be significantly impacted, the previous government put paid to the other income tax and CGT benefits. A lot of people forget that.
There has been much anger over the change to bring pension pots into IHT. There has been almost no recognition that the tax relief given to help build that pot is huge and as all tax reliefs have to be paid for it is those who don’t enjoy such good fortune who pay for it.
The imposition of VAT on private school fees will go ahead – not my favourite tax policy but if it’s a choice between VAT on school fees and more State schools closing whilst repairs are carried out or for the safety of children then I know what I prefer.
And finally, a word of advice to those who decide to make representations to the Treasury. Keep the examples of the effects in the real world – exaggerated impacts can be seen a mile off and will not hit home. Only if Treasury/HMRC officials see real world consequences that they did not and would not have intended are they likely to consider a rethink.
Well, that was the Budget. Despite the predictions I thought it was mild and, inevitably, nowhere near the armageddon that was predicted. If you do think this one was bad, you should have been around for the 1985 to 1988 Budgets: they were rough. unless you were very wealthy of course in which case they were from heaven.
The increase in employers NICs combined with increases in the minimum wage will be tough for some businesses and careful analysis will be needed to ensure that anything that might be unintended is brought to the attention of government during the Finance Bill process. It’s not my recollection that lots of businesses went bust when employers NIC was even more substantially increased than now or VAT was doubled in the 1980s.
Likewise with APR, it seems clear that there is a lot of support for this change from the public (not from the wealthy landowners obviously but that is to be expected). Again however it will be important to be alert to unintended effects since although APR remains a very valuable tax relief, given the number of farms, it seems inevitable that some hard cases may emerge. It could be a boom time for farming and business reorganisation tax specialists.
The non-dom changes have generated even more angst than before the Budget (if that was possible). Only those individuals with excluded property trusts will be significantly impacted, the previous government put paid to the other income tax and CGT benefits. A lot of people forget that.
There has been much anger over the change to bring pension pots into IHT. There has been almost no recognition that the tax relief given to help build that pot is huge and as all tax reliefs have to be paid for it is those who don’t enjoy such good fortune who pay for it.
The imposition of VAT on private school fees will go ahead – not my favourite tax policy but if it’s a choice between VAT on school fees and more State schools closing whilst repairs are carried out or for the safety of children then I know what I prefer.
And finally, a word of advice to those who decide to make representations to the Treasury. Keep the examples of the effects in the real world – exaggerated impacts can be seen a mile off and will not hit home. Only if Treasury/HMRC officials see real world consequences that they did not and would not have intended are they likely to consider a rethink.
