Jeremy Hunt’s Autumn Statement 2023

On 22 November 2023, Chancellor Jeremy Hunt presented his Autumn Statement to Parliament and started making, in his words, the long-term decisions necessary to strengthen the economy and build a brighter future. Fuelled by falling inflation and stabilised public finances, focus is now being applied to reducing debt, cutting tax and rewarding hard work. But after much anticipation and the rumour mill in full flow – particularly around changes to inheritance tax, it actually ended being a bit of a damp squib, although not without some good news dotted here and there.

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So, let’s get the headline grabbers out of the way first. The drop in NIC from 12%-10% is certainly going to have a positive effect on people’s pockets and they’re rushing it through to commence in January 2024. For businesses who invest in plant and machinery and referred to as ‘the biggest permanent tax cut in modern British history for businesses’ the full expensing relief has now been made permanent – whilst this won’t have an immediate impact as it is already in place, it is great news for the manufacturing sector allowing better long-term planning and forecasting and I’m sure will be welcomed. There are a few small tweaks to R&D tax reliefs with the threshold for ‘R&D Intensive’ companies reduced from 40% – 30% as well as some flexibility in the same scheme, which we will go into in more detail about in our download. This demonstrates another show of support for innovation. There is also a big push to get people back to work, in an effort to reduce the benefits burden and increase the tax take – if successful, this can only be good news for businesses which are still struggling with recruitment – however, it’s unlikely to be a quick fix.

Some other anticipated measures appear to be on hold ahead of a full Budget next Spring, which rightly or wrongly will inevitably be influenced by the impending General Election. We’ve put together a summary of the key points which you can download here with our compliments, but if you would like clarity on any of it, then please don’t hesitate to contact the relevant team.