Were you listening with bated breath to Mr Jeremy Hunt’s Spring Statement yesterday?

At the bottom of this blog we have put the link to the Executive Summary of the Spring Statement 2023 on HMRC’s website.  But it is quite a heavy read so we have put below some of the key points:

News for small business clients:

• Corporation Tax rise to 25% will go ahead as planned
• Annual Investment Allowance will be permanently set at £1 million
• Full expensing for money invested by qualifying companies in qualifying equipment
• R&D relief for loss-making small or medium-sized enterprises
• Fuel duty frozen

News for parents too:

• The government will substantially increasing the amount of free childcare that working families can access – 30 hours per week for working parents with children aged 9 months up to 3 years in England
• From April 2024, working parents of 2 year-olds will be able to access 15 hours of free childcare per week, and this will be extended to working parents of 9 month to 2 year-olds from September 2024
• From September 2025, all eligible working parents of children aged 9 months up to 3 years will be able to access 30 free hours per week.

News for those saving for their old age:

• Changes to annual allowance increasing the maximum contribution from £40,000 to £60,000
• The pension lifetime allowance which is currently set at £1,073,100 has now been abolished.   Not many of us will be lucky enough to have that amount in their pension pot so for those who do have, there will no longer be a tax charge on high value pension pots.
• However, the 25% tax free cash you can take out of your pension is still limited to 25% of the current lifetime allowance of £1,073,100 which is £268,275 but again this will only be pertinent to those lucky individuals who have a very large pension pot!

If you want some more flesh on the bones of the Spring Statement, please go on the link below for HMRC.

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/spring-budget-2023/spring-budget-2023-html#executive-summary