The Spring Statement is usually intended only to be an economic update, but with inflation hitting a 30-year high of 6.2% in February, the Chancellor has been under pressure to deliver something akin to a mini-Budget.Here are the highlights………..Income taxSunak announced “for the first time in 16 years” a 1% cut in income tax before the end of the Parliament in 2024. Sunak said this would be a £5bn tax cut. In the shock rabbit-out-of-the hat announcement at the end of his speech, Sunak announced “for the first time in 16SEE DETAILS

No doubt you will have all heard some/all of the budget update yesterday afternoon and I appreciate many of you are eager to know how it will affect you and your business.Whilst there were many rumours of increases to certain taxes; mainly corporation tax and capital gains tax, the changes are not as expected.The main areas to summarise on, are below:CJRS – the job retention scheme will be extended to 30 September 2021. The scheme currently in progress will extend to the end of June and then the claim willSEE DETAILS

Stamp DutyCurrently, the threshold for paying stamp duty on residential properties is £125,000 in England and Northern Ireland, unless you are a first time buyer, where the threshold is £300,000 (only if the property value is under £500,000).However, as from 8th July 2020, Chancellor Rishi Sunak announced the threshold will be temporarily raised to £500,000 until 31 March 2021.This change is to help economic growth in ‘boosting’ the property market and the Treasury have said this change will help nine out of 10 people during this period as they willSEE DETAILS

The Government has announced an unprecedented package of support for businesses and individuals affected by Covid-19.The draft legislation Coronavirus Bill 2019-21 include an amendment to support self-employed people a statutory self-employment pay.The draft amended legislation is:Statutory self-employment pay(1) The Secretary of State must, by regulations, introduce a scheme of Statutory Self-Employment Pay.(2) The scheme must make provision for payments to be made out of public funds to individuals who are:(a) self-employed, or(b) freelancers.(3) The payments to be made in subsection (2) are to be set so that the net monthlyearningsSEE DETAILS <...

This week, the Chancellor of the Exchequer; the Rt Hon Rishi Sunak MP, delivered the government’s Budget 2020.The most important of the tax announcements was probably the reduction in the Entrepreneurs’ relief lifetime allowance from £10m to £1m. Given that there was a head of steam building up for its complete abolition, most will be relieved that a significant level of relief has been retained.There was little of direct impact for individuals, although the zero-rating of electronic books and publications from December 2020 will bring welcome price reductions in theSEE DETAILS