Business News

Autumn Statement 2023

23/11/2023

Yesterday, Chancellor Jeremy Hunt delivered his Autumn Statement for 2023. He said his priorities are to avoid big government spending and high tax, and instead reward ‘hard work’ together with targeted measure to help businesses grow.

The Autumn Statement is the Chancellors main opportunity  (outside of the spring budget) to change tax and make spending announcements. The measures announced yesterday are clearly aimed at reviving the UK’s struggling economy together with trying to bolster the Torie’s election chances next year.

There were some key announcements such as the reduction in National Insurance (NI) by 2% – this will save the average worker £450 per year. It was interesting to see that this will take effect from January and no doubt today all payroll software providers have cancelled any extended Christmas holiday as they will need to update all systems to cope with this change. For businesses, it was expected that the Chancellor would make Business investment tax relief – ‘ full expensing’ permanent and he delivered on that. Full expensing is a capital allowance tax scheme allowing companies to deduct 100% of the cost for equipment from their profits – equivalent to a tax saving of 25p in every £1 spent.

The Chancellor also announced further changes intended to simplify and improve the Research and Development (R&D) tax incentive schemes in the UK. We have several businesses that claim R & D relief – there are various factors that influence the ability to claim but if you need any advice do get in touch. We have also worked with a number of R & D claims specialists who we feel we could recommend. There are many companies out there conducting this type of business but you do need to be careful when selecting such a company.

State Pensions received a boost and we also saw an interesting announcement that savers could be given the right to choose the pension scheme that their employer pays into. It seems Jeremy Hunt does have a certain ‘soft spot’ for pensions – given that he also increased the annual pension allowance to £60,000 pa in his Spring Budget.

You can read our PDF report on the budget by clicking here – As always, do get in touch if you have any questions.