You will have heard earlier this month the chancellor, George Osborne, delivered his Autumn Statement. Some of the key changes included: an increase to the income tax personal allowance from April 2014 and from April 2015 some of the allowance (£1,000) becoming transferable between spouses and civil partners; the higher rate (40%) tax threshold increasing by £415 to £41,865; in April 2015 capital gains tax will apply to future gains on residential property owned by non-resident individuals; the CGT annual exempt amount will be £11,000 for 2014/15 and then be £11,100 for 2015/16; overall annual individual savings account (ISA) subscription limit for 2014/15 will rise to £11,880, of which £5,940 can be invested in cash.
He also outlined the introduction of a new class of voluntary NICs to allow pensioners reaching state pension age before 6 April 2016 to top up their Additional Pension entitlement, which we will expand upon in a further news article.
Some of the key changes for businesses included the Government’s aim to ease the impact of business rates on struggling retailers by announcing a number of new reliefs and discounts, and business rates during 2014 being be capped at 2% with small business rate relief to be extended for another year to April 2015;
Employers will benefit by having National Insurance scrapped for under 21’s from 6th April 2015, and an additional 20,000 apprenticeships will be created.
These are just a few of the key points discussed during the speech. If you would like to find out more please call us.
