Delivering the first Monday Budget speech since 1962, the Government’s political agenda saw the Chancellor pushing the notion that austerity was coming to an end.

Off the back of that, there were some headline grabbing changes in the Budget but some more subtle ones which will have an impact on individuals and businesses from the 2019/20 tax year:

Key changes for Individuals for 2019/20

• Personal tax allowance up to £12,500
• Higher rate threshold up to £50,000
• Capital gains tax annual exemption up to £12,000
• National living wage increased to £8.21/hour
• Final period exemption for principal private residences reduced to 9 months from April 2020
• Fuel duty for petrol and diesel frozen for another year

Key changes for businesses for 2019/20

• Minimum qualifying period for Entrepreneurs’ Relief increased to 2 years
• VAT threshold to remain unchanged at £85,000 until April 2022
• Annual investment allowance to increase to £1m for 2 years from January 2019
• Capital allowances for special rate pool decreased from 8% to 6%. It will now take assets in this pool nearly 50 years to achieve a 95% tax write off.
• First year allowances for electric charging points
• From April 2020, Corporation Tax reduces to 17%
• Personal service companies – from April 2020, the responsibility for applying the IR35 rules will be put onto larger private sector employers rather than just public sector bodies

If you’d like to pick up anything specific with our team, please feel free to get in touch.