Save content
Have you found this content useful? Use the button above to save it to your profile.

Our Budget wishlist

16th Mar 2014
Save content
Have you found this content useful? Use the button above to save it to your profile.

As one commentator put it last year, it’s nearly time for another dose of George’s Marvellous Medicine.

The original GMM had everything in it from paint to animal medicines, from shoe polish to liquid paraffin, and from canary seed to hairspray.  And what it achieved was phenomenal growth.

But when the George in the book and his dad tried to recreate the medicine later, the resulting mixtures either brought growth in the wrong places, or shrinkage.

The Employment Allowance, announced last year, sounded like a really good idea (“£2,000 off your employer’s National Insurance bills!”) until the small print came out.  Not available for domestic workers (why?) or for people working in the public sector (with certain exceptions).  And if you switch to doing most of your work in the public sector part way through the year, then you have to pay back everything you’ve had so far that year in Employment Allowance.  That’s not only very complicated, but also says a lot about this government’s thoughts on public sector workers.

And, as I wrote last week, Auto-Enrolment for pension schemes sounds like it’s going to be a complete nightmare for small business owners.

So what do we here in this small company want from this week’s budget?

A continuation of tax breaks for research and development would be excellent.  But even there the rules seem more complicated than they need to.

A genuine simplification would be even better, particularly around the taxation of employees’ wages.

Maybe Mr Osborne and his staff should all spend a year on secondment in a small business and see what implementing their policies in the real world actually feels like.

As CD put it: “It won’t make any difference to us what’s in the Budget.  We’ll just carry on as we are now.  And why are people bothering to try and predict what’s in there?  We can’t read anyone’s mind.  We’re far better off just getting on with our business.”

Let’s see if he’s right about the first bit, anyway…

Tags:

You might also be interested in

Replies (1)

Please login or register to join the discussion.

avatar
By Morgan Hunt
17th Mar 2014 17:10

Morgan Hunt examines the market for finance jobs
The property stable door is open and having been penned up for the last five years, the real estate horse is ready to bolt. So what ever the budget brings hopefully the market will be good for finance jobs in Real Estate. 

The Government is betting on a booming real estate industry to bring prosperity; not an empty pot fuelled by house prices, but one that is full of solid investment to generate some serious income. This year the property industry is looking set to be a good choice of career and more so for those involved in finance. Real estate is seeing the strongest growth since 2007, probably not surprising when you consider that the investment market still has low interest rates, low yielding bonds and Gilts that remain a relatively unattractive investment; boredom has set in and fund managers are now more than ready to see some action in the betting ring. Both overseas and domestic buyers are in the mood for shopping and as the old retail saying goes when buyers have bought once the propensity to purchase increases. So here's hoping that there won't be temptation from the Chancellor to tax this growth. 

Thanks (0)