For Business & individuals

Autumn Budget 2024

Creating tax clarity

The Chancellor delivered Labour’s first Budget in 14 years on 30 October with tax measures announced to raise £40 billion for the Treasury. Our tax experts have provided an in-depth analysis of the key announcements below.

At a glance:
Key headlines summarised by Hazlewoods tax experts.

Economy

The OBR has forecast growth for our economy this year and each of the next five years as follows:
2024 – 1.1%
2025 – 2.0%
2026 – 1.8%
2027 – 1.5%
2028 – 1.5%
2029 – 1.6%
The OBR has forecast CPI inflation for this year and each of the next five years as follows:
2024 – 2.5%
2025 – 2.6%
2026 – 2.3%
2027 – 2.1%
2028 – 2.1%
2029 – 2.0%
Current debt is £127bn which is 4.5% of GDP, to be reduced to 2.1% by the end of the five-year forecast period.
Budget deficit/surplus on annual budget for the next five years is forecast as follows:
2025/26 – (£26.2bn)
2026/27 – (£5.2bn)
2027/28 – £10.9bn
2028/29 – £9.3bn
2029/30 – £9.9bn

Tax measures

Budget will raise taxes by £40 billion.
No increase to National Insurance for working people.
Employers’ National Insurance to increase by 1.2 percentage points from 13.8% to 15% from April 2025 with the employers’ secondary threshold to decrease from £9,100 to £5,000.
Employment allowance to increase from £5,000 to £10,500 from April 2025.
CGT rates to increase from 10% to 18% (basic rate) and 20% to 24% (higher rate) bringing into line with the rates for residential property.
Business Asset Disposal Relief threshold to be maintained at £1million but rate to increase from 10% to 14% in April 2025 and to 18% from April 2026.
Inheritance tax nil rate bands to stay the same until 2030.
Inherited pensions brought into inheritance tax from 2027.
APR/BPR £1million limit, with 50% relief thereafter from 2026.
Investments in AIM and similar markets to qualify for BPR at 50%.
Abolishing of non-domicile regime to go ahead from April 2025 and will raise £12.7bn.
SDLT additional home surcharge in England and Northern Ireland increased to 5% from tomorrow (31 October 2024).
25% cap on corporation tax rate to stay for duration of this parliament.
Annual investment allowance – £1m annual allowance and Full Expensing rules to be maintained.
R&D relief to stay as is to drive innovation.
From 2028/29 income tax and national insurance allowances and thresholds to be increased in line with inflation.
Business rates relief to be removed and VAT to be introduced on private school fees from January 2025 as previously announced.

Spending

£11.8bn allocated for the blood infection scandal and £1.8m for Post Office Horizon scandal.
Breakfast clubs will have their funding tripled, an additional £2.3 billion for core schools, £300 million for higher education and £1 billion for SEN.
NATO and Ukraine support to become £3 billion per annum for as long as needed.
2.5% of GDP to be spent on defence with a total increase to the MOD budget of £2.9bn.
£5 billion commitment to housing to build 1.5 million new homes.
£6.7 billion capital investment to fix crumbling schools.
Total of £25.7 billion increase in funding to NHS spread over this year and next.