Chancellor George Osborne has announced that he will be holding a second Budget of 2015 on 8 July. He says that this will be a budget for "working people".
There will be a great deal of speculation as to what will be announced over the next couple of months, as we don't want to waste space, we will only report the measures that we are certain of:
According to the Conservative's manifesto there are plans to cut some £12 billion from benefits and tax avoidance remains a key issue.
Several measures that were expected to be included in the first Finance Act 2015 were omitted, announcements are expected on these, they include:
- tax exemption for trivial benefits
- exemption for local authority members’ travel expenses;
- simplification of consortium relief claims
- changes to Enterprise Investment Scheme (EIS) and Venture Capital Trusts (VCT) rules (see below)
- new excise duty rate for aqua methanol.
What else?
- Following a review of travel and subsistence rules, we expect some changes to prevent perceived abuse of the temporary travel rules by employment agencies and also changes affecting one man personal service companies.
Consultation has been ongoing over the last few months on a range of topics including:
- Tax penalties EIS and VCT changes including;:
- a new 12-year age limit on companies qualifying for EIS/VCT investment
- a new cap on total EIS/VCT investment that an individual company can receive of £15 million for most companies, and £20 million for ‘knowledge-intensive’ companies
- an increased employee limit of 499 for knowledge-intensive companies
- removal of the barriers between SEIS and EIS and VCT funding
- Proposals to introduce new measures for serial users of tax avoidance schemes, and penalties for cases where the General Anti-Abuse Rule (GAAR) applies.
- Orchestra tax relief (as announced in Budget 2014)
