Budget 2020 Rumours: 'Levelling Up'...What might this mean?
So Rishi Sunak will stand up as Chancellor to given his first (and unexpected) Budget Speech tomorrow at around 12.30pm, 11 March 2020.
The rumour mill has been swirling for several weeks regarding possible attacks on higher-rate pensions tax relief and Entrepreneurs’ Relief.
All part of the “levelling up” mantra…
The question is whether Mr Sunak has had the necessary time in office (just a matter of a few weeks) to fully consider the impact of changes to these valuable tax incentives on our economy? Especially Entrepreneurs’ Relief… And especially at these rather unstable times with the veil of uncertainty provided by Brexit and Coronavirus…
The ripples from Whitehall are that the pensions relief will not be tampered with right now but that Entrepreneurs’ Relief will be - some suggesting that Sunak might go as far as scrapping it all together! We will have to wait and see but I, for one, would be gobsmacked if he went this far. A scaling back of the lifetime limit from its current £10m down to £1m of gains would seem more palatable, but it may go a whole lot further.
The National Insurance threshold will likely go up - suggestions that it will increase to £9,500 to reduce the impact of the current 12% charge on those earning over £8,632.
Overall, I think this will be a Budget that seeks to reassure the public that funding is available to meet whatever falls out from the coronavirus and Brexit and that infrastructure investment is at the top of the Government’s spending plans.
But from my experience, the devil is typically in the detail, so I’ll be keeping my beady-eye out for how this could impact on UK entrepreneurs.
More after the ‘show’ tomorrow.