Today the Chancellor will deliver his Autumn Budget 2021. Amid a flurry of trails to the media, in this post Wayne Thomas takes a look at what we know so far.
One thing is clear. Despite a raft of spending announcements, there will be cuts to public spending in other areas to fund them and the Treasury has hinted that tax changes are on the way. After their telling off from the Commons Speaker for briefing the media ahead of the Budget, the Treasury said they had not commented on the “substantive tax measures” that would appear in the Budget. So, apart from the possible tax changes, what do we know so far?
Announcements already made include:
- £5.9bn to clear NHS backlog
- Rise in National Living Wage to £9.50
- End to public sector pay freeze
- £1.5bn of new funding for city regions to spend on train, bus, tram and cycle projects
- £1.8bn for building around 160,000 new homes on brownfield sites in England
- £150m for British Business Bank to encourage Dragon’s Den style regional investors outside of London and South East
- £700m for football pitches, tennis courts and youth facilities
- £700m to protect UK borders
- Grants of £1.4bn to “internationally mobile” companies to invest in UK infrastructure
- £500m to support parents and children in England
Expectations:
- No cut to VAT on household energy bills, according to the BBC
- Cuts to government spending in justice, local government and further education are expected as a result of the spending review
- £65m for digitising England’s planning system.
Against a backdrop of the pandemic, the already announced Health and Social Care Levy, a tentative economic recovery and issues with supply chains, we will be paying careful attention to the speech and analysing the accompanying details to understand the likely impact for our clients. Our tax team still expect that the Chancellor will have Capital Gains Tax in his sights.