Today (22nd November 2023) we have heard the Chancellor Jeremy Hunts's Autumn Budget. There was a lot that was announced in this and below are a few key points we feel you will want to know about.
National Minimum Wage
The National Minimum Wage (NMW) has been increased for all, with the most notable increase being to the National Living Wage (NLW). To start with, the NLW has increased by more than a pound to £11.44 per hour from April 2024. The current NLW is £10.42. Currently, the NLW applies to anyone over the age of 23, but from April 2024 this is being reduced to apply to anyone over the age of 21. This means that a full-time worker aged 23 on the NLW will receive an increase of around £1,800 per year, with someone who is 21 seeing an increase of around £2,300.
National Insurance
National Insurance (NI) rates have been reduced, with the main rate of NI cut from 12% to 10% from 6th January 2024, with this cut affecting 27 million people. Class 2 NI which is paid by self-employed people earning over £12,570 is to be scrapped from April 2024. Class 4 NI which is again paid by the self-employed, paid on profits from £12,570 to £50,270 is to be cut from 9% to 8% from April 2024.
Benefits
Benefits will increase by 6.7% from April 2024, in line with the inflation rate from September. Though It was also announced that welfare recipients will be made to undertake mandatory work placement if they are still looking for a job after 18 months.
Business Rates
It was announced that the 75% business rates discount for the retail, hospitality, and leisure sectors has been extended for another year.
Duties
Good news to a lot of "punters", the duty on all alcohol has been frozen until 1st August 2024 whilst the duty on Tobacco has risen by 20% in a bid to discourage people from taking up smoking.
So that is our main takeaways from the autumn budget for today! We will be going over a lot of these and more in our special edition of Tax Tidbits which will be released tomorrow on our YouTube channel, so make sure to give that one a watch.