Jason Hollands: Five Areas to Watch in the Budget

  • On November 20, 2017
  • By GrowthInvest Admin

Jason Hollands picks out five areas advisers ought to keep an eye out for when Chancellor Philip Hammond stands up to give his first Autumn Budget next Wednesday.

Chancellor of the Exchequer Philip Hammond, goes into next Wednesday’s Budget with an unenviable hand. The government has a wafer-thin majority in parliament and has been racked by two Cabinet resignations in recent weeks. There is open revolt on the Tory backbenches and hardcore Brexiteers are gunning for the Chancellor.

Meanwhile, Brexit negotiations with the EU appear to have hit an impasse and the economy, which proved so resilient in the aftermath of the EU referendum as consumers kept on spending, is facing headwinds as wage growth lags inflation.

This has piled on the pressure for the government to relax public sector wage constraints and, alongside this, a surge in turnout by younger voters at the General Election in support of Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party has led to calls for measures to pacify the younger voters – for example by looking at reforms to the student loans system, de facto age-targeted tax cuts through National Insurance (NI) and measures to improve access to the property market.

Hammond’s room for manoeuvre is, however, tight – both politically and in terms of the state of the public finances. It therefore remains to be seen whether he will attempt to draw a line under recent travails with a flurry of bold initiatives, or choose a more timid ‘safety first’ approach due to the current political and financial constraints. Our expectation is the Chancellor will be reluctant wholly to break with fiscal prudence and that any new initiatives will need to be funded by savings elsewhere.

So what should we look for in the Budget? Here are five areas to keep an eye on: Stamp Duty Reform, Raid On Pensions – For The Better Off?, Taxes On Dividends, A Freeze On The ISA Allowance? and Technical Changes To EIS And VCTs.

Read about the areas here.

Source: Professional Adviser

GET IN TOUCH!

  MAIL US
enquiries@growthinvest.com

  CALL US
020 7071 3945

FOLLOW US ON


Throughout our site you will find links to external websites. Although we make every effort to ensure these links are accurate, up to date and relevant, we cannot take responsibility for pages maintained by external providers.