Like businesses up and down the country (and beyond), we’re eagerly anticipating Chancellor Osborne’s Budget on 19 March and hoping that it contains measures to support and encourage continued growth throughout the economy. Here’s a reminder of some measures already announced:

Corporate

The main rate of corporation tax will fall to 21% in April 2014 before reducing further to 20% from April 2015 and in line with the small companies’ rate. This will help to simplify the compliance process as the rules identifying associated companies will cease to exist.

The rules governing the use of trading losses where there has been a change of ownership are to change and designed to ease current restrictions.

The Employment Allowance is introduced from 6 April 2014, reducing an employer’s National Insurance Contributions by up to £2,000 per annum.

Personal

From 6 April 2014, the personal tax allowance will rise to £10,000. There is speculation that this amount could increase further from April 2015 to £10,500. The higher rate threshold will rise to £41,865, representing a 1% increase. It will be interesting to see how Chancellor Osborne reacts to calls to increase this amount more in line with inflation as it is estimated that an additional 1 million taxpayers will be dragged into the 40% tax net.

Salaried partners will be taxed in line with employees for income and corporation tax, where certain conditions are met. There are also changes surrounding the allocation of profits within partnerships.

From 6 April, tax advantaged share schemes will be subject to self-certification with HMRC and the rules around this have been simplified.

We will be sending out our Budget highlights on the afternoon of the Budget. This will also be on our website.

If you would like to discuss anything surrounding Budget 2014, please contact Curo’s head of tax, Julia Whelan [email protected] or call Julia on 01527 558539..