Filed under: government
Before we give the lowdown on the Chancellor’s autumn statement, it’s worth mentioning that pithy overviews of pre-Budget announcements such as this are easier to do when there are some upbeat headlines as well as the inevitable sharp intakes of breath and economic tightening of belts, says Paul Webb, tax partner at Surrey accountant RJP. Not so here. In his speech, Osborne said he would do ‘whatever it takes’ to protect Britain from the ‘debt storm’ in Europe. (more…)
November 30, 2011
Yesterday’s Budget was the first decent budget for entrepreneurs and business owners for some time and it’s exactly what the country needs to help rebuild economic activity.
Continue June 23, 2010
The weekend papers were full of news about the planned increases to capital gains tax (CGT) announced by the new government. Some commentators have argued that this change has been on the cards for some time, although during the Election campaigning it was only the Lib Dems that formally announced their intentions. Subsequently incorporated into the coalition’s policies, we can expect CGT rates for top earners to more than double for non business assets and the exemption threshold to be cut from £10,100 to between £1,000 and £2,000.
These changes will be painful, especially since for the past 2 years, the flat rate of 18% has been extremely generous. But given the poor state of the Treasury’s coffers, the disparity between income and capital tax rates cannot be sustainable.
Continue May 27, 2010
Last week, the new Conservative LibDem coalition government was announced amid a flurry of guarded excitement and scepticism. The coalition has been quick to stamp out suggestions that their political differences will be too marked to produce effective financial policy and so far, the speed with which agreements have been reached is impressive and very positive in terms of their quality.
Continue May 19, 2010
The current situation with a hung parliament offers a very interesting parallel to the question facing some entrepreneurs of adopting either a partnership or a limited company status. At a micro level, the issues facing partners within a business are very similar. There is no right or wrong approach, and each business needs to decide individually which structure to opt for. (Of course, this is only an issue where a business has more than one main contributor.)
In my experience, businesses tend to prefer operating as a partnership when there is a desire to retain the full involvement of all members in the decision making processes. It is sometimes felt that if authority is devolved to a particular board member to make decisions relating to certain aspects of the business, then the decision making powers of other key figures within the business will be diluted. And therein lies the challenge, both at a business and political level. But if a business is well governed, this isn’t necessarily the case.
The biggest disadvantage of the partnership structure is that decision-making is slower because each time, a consensus needs to be achieved. The downsides of this are a loss of spontaneity and the ability to capitalise quickly on opportunities. All too often, it’s the “being in the right place at the right time” scenario that has meant an entrepreneur has achieved great success.
And isn’t this exactly what is happening in Government right now? It has taken a number of days for the Tories and Lib Dems to strike a deal and form a coalition government. The view from business is pretty unanimous. They regard a hung parliament to be just about the worst thing that could have happened to the UK economy, just when it looked like the country was starting to climb slowly out of recession. Now we potentially have more uncertainty and no real direction – so let’s hope this new “partnership” Government can make some swift and effective decisions, otherwise, we can expect another Election in the coming months.
Lesley Stalker is Head of Tax at RJP
May 11, 2010
Tax has become very politically motivated, perhaps too much so. Policies are introduced which are ill-researched and potentially damaging. What can be done about this? Should an all-party committee be established to restore political independence to tax policy making? What options exist?
Continue January 4, 2010
We predicted it would be a controversial pre-budget report and it lived up to expectations, with some headline measures that are clearly designed to win over the hearts and minds of Labour’s core supporters. But in spite of this, most observers would agree that overall, it was a pretty good result for Surrey’s business owners.
Continue December 11, 2009
If ever there was a policy designed to score quick political points it’s the Lib Dem’s suggestion that people with a property over £1m should pay an extra tax of 0.5%. And if there was a move that is more demoralising to tens of thousands of hard working small business owners, I’d be surprised. However, the proposals do raise an interesting question as to the fairness of the tax system and especially the discrepancy between capital and income tax rates, writes Lesley Stalker.
Continue September 26, 2009
