Haines Watts is a leading advisor to owner-managed businesses in the UK. The firm provides ambitious business owners with the tax, compliance, corporate finance, and strategic business advisory services they need to grow.
Managing Partner for Haines Watts North East, Donna Bulmer, looks at the headline announcements and implications from #Budget2018:
“Chancellor Philip Hammond today announced a budget intended to be for ‘the strivers, the grafters and the carers’. This led to a raft of announcements focused on NHS, housing and, crucially, SME businesses and entrepreneurship.
Extending start-up loan funding to 2021, and not abolishing entrepreneur’s relief but extending the minimum qualifying period from 12 months to two years will provide a welcome boost. The annual investment allowance (AIA) will also rise from £200,000 to £1 million for two years. This allows businesses to benefit from a deduction of the full cost of qualifying additions in year (up to £1 million), giving businesses the opportunity to gain full relief in the year they make investments.
From October 2018, businesses will also be able to deduct 2% of the cost of any new non-residential structures and buildings from their profits before they pay tax. Plans to cut the apprenticeship levy in half – from 10% to 5% – for some employers will be well received, and £1bn of business bank guarantees to revive SME house builders, coupled with £675m of co-funding to invest in improvements and re-development of high streets and housing development could also have significant effects on the shape of struggling local high streets.
We’ve also got a commemorative 50p coin to look forward to! So far, so encouraging…”