The Autumn Statement

Once upon a time the Autumn Statement only dealt with the country’s economic position and strategies’ to improve it…….and it was called the “Pre Budget Report”.

Now it has become an intrinsic part of the overall Budget process and gives the government a chance to unveil some of its proposed tax changes within the context of the overall economic strategy.

Whilst there will, inevitably, be new proposals made in Budget 2016, the Autumn Statement contains information on tax and pensions proposals that is important for us to share with you.

With the government still under constant pressure to improve public finances, (and the climb down on tax credits and the increases to the defence budget increase the difficulty of this challenge) the importance of taxation to the overall “business plan” of ‘UKPlc’ cannot be underestimated.

As in previous years, government action to combat tax avoidance and evasion features.

One thing that in certain from this change of tact is that tax and everything around it has become much more complex, as a result of the evolution of the Autumn Statement.

All in all, and compared to Budgets and Autumn Statements of the recent past, there were very few kinks to deal with which made for a relatively lazy afternoon.

To be honest we think that writing out a summary for you would just be plain boring, so the plan is to break it down into bite sized videos over the next week or so, for you to digest at your leisure, covering the key areas that may affect you.

These will broadly break down into:

• Tax
• Pensions
• Savings and Investments
• Property
• Tax avoidance and evasion

I will let you decide which are relevant to you and as always please feel free to comment and share.