ReOn Tuesday 29th November the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) published its updated forecast for the UK economy. Chancellor George Osborne responded to that forecast in a statement to the House of Commons later on that day.
In the period since the Budget in March a number of consultation papers and discussion documents have been published by HMRC. Draft legislation relating to many of these areas will be published on 6 December 2011. We will provide an update for you if significant changes are announced on 6 December.
Our summary also provides a reminder of other key developments which are to take place from April 2012.
The Chancellor’s statement
The Chancellor emphasised that the OBR does not predict a recession in Britain but they have revised down their short term growth prospects for the country. He also made clear that the OBR central forecast assumes ‘the euro finds a way through the current crisis’.
General measures
The Autumn Statement sets out the actions the Government will take in two main areas:
• protecting the economy and
• building a stronger economy for the future.
In order to maintain economic stability and meet its fiscal rules, the Government will, for example:
• set plans for public spending in 2015/16 and 2016/17 in line with the spending reductions over the Spending Review 2010 period
• raise the State Pension age to 67 between April 2026 and April 2028
• set public sector pay awards at an average of 1% for each of the two years after the current pay freeze comes to an end.
The growth plans include the publication of a National Infrastructure Plan 2011. The plan sets out a pipeline of over 500 infrastructure projects including:
• introducing a new approach to financing infrastructure, by obtaining £20 billion of private investment from pension funds
• investing over £1 billion to tackle areas of congestion and improve the national road network
• investing more than £1.4 billion in railway infrastructure and commuter links
• investing £100 million to create up to ten ‘super-connected cities’ across the UK, with 80-100 megabits per second broadband and city-
Archive for the ‘Government Legislation’ Category
UK Economy
Wednesday, November 30th, 2011Supercar tax in nearly here
Monday, March 21st, 2011Up to now there has been a maximum list price in the sum of £8000 which in turn meant the most you would pay would be £14000 income tax and £3584 national insurance contributions.
Come the 6th April the ceiling disappears and so for example a Ferrari 612 with a list price in the region of £222000 would result in an income tax bill in the region of £39000 pa and employers national insurance contributions will soar to £10000, quite a hike. Mr David Heaton from Baker Tilly talking to the Daily Telegraph stated:-
“Removing the £80000 maximum list price is an easy hit for the Government, as it affects a select group of wealthy drivers. the tax hike was described in 2009 by Alistair Darling when he introduced the legislation as ensuring drivers of expensive cars paid a fair level of tax, but the result is more likely to be the disappearance of the supercar from companies.”
Mr Heaton further added “The super-rich many not worry about th extra tax, but there is a real danger that some drivers of older company-owned supercars could be caught out: as you can pick up a 2005 model Ferrari 612 ~Scaglietti fro about £65000 but as a company car the tak bill is based on its list price on £177000: £39500 of tax and NIC per year to drive a car worth £65000 is not very attractive.”