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 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 […]

Autumn Budget 2022 – the mini-budget that packed a punch!

Today was always going to be an interesting day – a new Government setting the tone of how they intend to govern, the ongoing cost of living crisis, the recent unlimited commitment to support taxpayers with their energy bills and talk of the UK heading towards (if not already in) recession. It was clear that […]

Autumn Budget 2021 – the tax Budget that never was!

You can never truly know the content of the Budget until the Chancellor has sat down and you get to grips with all of the publications generated by HM Treasury, even in this day and age, when numerous announcements are leaked to the press in the run up to the big day. Often those publications […]