A comprehensive summary of the measures announced by Chancellor Jeremy Hunt in his spring budget speech on Wednesday 15th March 2023. Find out how the measures will affect you and your business.
Some of the biggest announcements covered are:
Individuals
- The number of 16 to 64-year-olds in employment has failed to return to pre-pandemic levels, with 8.86m “economically inactive'', however the number of job vacancies remains high at 1.1 million.
- Pensions lifetime allowance limit scrapped, workers will now be able to make unlimited pension contributions during their lifetime.
- Expansion of free childcare; the Government will expand the support of working parents with children over the age of nine months to be entitled to 15 hours free childcare a week or 30 hours if both parents are in work and earn at least the national minimum wage, (this is not available for parents earning more than £100,000) by September 2025.
- Launch of a Returnships Programme, that will offer skills training for those over50 taking previous experience into account.
- Energy Support; Chancellor has announced a three-month extension of the energy price guarantee. The energy bill support will continue at the same levels until the end of June.
- Alcohol and cigarette duty; From August a new system will be in place for calculating taxes on alcohol will come into force, this means duty rates will increase in line with the Retail Price Index. When it comes to cigarettes from 15th March 2023 duty rates on all tobacco products will increase by RPI + 2%.
- Fuel Duties to remain at the current levels for an additional 12 months, this cancels the planned increase in line with inflation for 2023/24.
Business
- The Government will introduce a ''full expensing'' scheme to encourage companies to invest in plant, machinery and technology. From 1 April 2023 until 31 March 2026, companies across the country will be able to claim back 100% of their qualifying costs.
- R&D Tax Relief; measures to reduce fraudulent research and development claims by lowering the amount businesses can claim in R&D expenditure. The R&D focused businesses will be able to claim a higher payable credit rate of 14.5% rather than the reduced 10% announced in the Autumn Statement.
- Investment Zones; the Chancellor has followed up with more details on the investment zones annonced in November's Autumn Statement. The refocused investment zones programme will focus on 12 growth clusters across the UK.
- Creative Industries in the UK will receive continued Government support through reformed tax reliefs and expenditure credits.
- Corporation tax rises as expected; as previously announced the corporation tax rate will increase from 19% to 25% in April 2023 for businesses with profits between £50,000 and £250,000.
If you have any questions on how any area covered affects you or your business please don't hesitate to get in touch!
