Yesterday the Chancellor took to the house of commons to announce the Autumn Budget where he announced a significant increase in spending pledges!
There was not a lot announced in regards to tax, but there were a few bits we would like to highlight for our clients.
To start with, the National Living wage and minimum wage are rising across the board. The rates from April 2022 will be:
| 23 and over | 21 to 22 | 18 to 20 | Under 18 | Apprenctice |
Current rate | £8.91 | £8.36 | £6.56 | £4.62 | £4.30 |
April 2022 | £9.50 | £9.18 | £6.83 | £4.81 | £4.81 |
Business rates have been cut for businesses in the hospitality, retail and leisure sectors by 50% in 2022/2023. This will bring quite high savings for a lot of our clients which will help with the recovery from covid.
It was also confirmed that the basis period reform will be going ahead with the transition year being in 2023/2024 and an automatic spreading mechanism will be introduced. This means, that if you are self-employed or in a partnership and currently your yearend is not March, then your yearend will need to be moved to fall in line with this. This will potentially cause you to have two yearends fall in one tax year which means you will have more tax to pay in that year. This is where the automatic spreading will come is to give you extra time to pay your tax.
Other things that were announced were:
A further extension to the annual investment allowance of which will remain at £1 million until April 2023
A cut in the universal credit taper threshold from 63% to 55%
An extension in the reporting in the filing deadline for UK Capital Gains Tax for Properties from 30 days to 60 days
Lastly, it was announced that beer duty will now be a lot easier for businesses to deal with which in turn could mean the price of alcohol in some instances will be a little bit cheaper.