IN George Osborne’s final Autumn Statement of this parliament, we were left in no doubt that a budget is just around the corner. Headline making announcements were aplenty with stamp duty land tax reform and Google tax stealing the show. The stamp duty changes, while being long overdue, have been welcomed broadly and will prove to be of great benefit to small business owners while undermining the attempts to levy a mansion tax by increasing stamp duty payable on properties worth over £1.125m. Although the Google tax will not apply to SMEs, there was a surprising sting in the tail for
IN George Osborne’s final Autumn Statement of this parliament, we were left in no doubt that a budget is just around the corner. Headline making announcements were aplenty with stamp duty land tax reform and Google tax stealing the show. The stamp duty changes, while being long overdue, have been welcomed broadly and will prove to be of great benefit to small business owners while undermining the attempts to levy a mansion tax by increasing stamp duty payable on properties worth over £1.125m. Although the Google tax will not apply to SMEs, there was a surprising sting in the tail for business owners in the removal of entrepreneurs’ relief and amortisation relief on the sale by a sole trader or partnership of goodwill into a company they will become the shareholders of. This was common planning and tax practitioners were surprised the government has targeted this as tax avoidance. There was also an incentive for businesses to take on apprentices with the removal of employers NICs on apprentices earning up to the upper earnings limit who are under the age of 25 whilst the never-ending support for R&D seemed to continue with the news that the uplift will rise from 225 per cent currently to 230 per cent for SMEs. Apart from the Google tax, banks were the other big victim of the day, as from April 2015 there will be a restriction in the amount of losses they will be able to use to shield any corporation tax due. Although banks have largely returned to profitability following the financial crisis, they amassed huge losses, which, in some cases, may mean they will not have to pay any corporation tax for a decade or more. Rachel Nutt, Tax Partner at Northampton-based chartered accountants MHA MacIntyre Hudson welcomes the moves. “This will seem to be a fair statement from the chancellor, taking an aggressive stance with the banks and large corporations whilst giving back to Middle Britain a much-welcomed stamp duty break. Care must be taken not to place too much emphasis on the future direction of finances based on this Autumn Statement as irrespective of who wins the general election in May 2015, we are most likely to see an emergency budget in June 2015 to set out the direction of the next parliament.” If you would like to discuss any of these issues in more detail Rachel can be contacted on 01604 624011 or at . You can also obtain a copy of MHA MacIntyre Hudson’s Autumn Statement Summary online at www.macintyrehudson.co.uk/publications or by email to
