Budget 2009 summary – What does it mean for small business?
23/04/2009 16:31:00
One of the most important budgets of recent years has been delivered by the Chancellor Alistair Darling. The key points for
small businesses are summarised below.
Business
- Loss making businesses will have an extension on reclaiming taxes paid in the last 3 years until November 2010.
- Businesses main capital allowance rate doubled to 40% to encourage companies to invest.
- New business fund worth £750m for strategic investment in emerging technologies and regionally important sectors.
Cigarettes, Alcohol and Fuel
- Alcohol taxes to go up by 2% from the 23rd April 2009. The average price of a pint will rise by 1p.
- Tobacco tax to rise by 2% from 6pm on the 22nd of April 2009. The average price of a pack of 20 cigarettes will rise by 7p.
- Fuel duty to rise by 2p per litre from September. A further increase of 1p per litre above inflation will occur every April for the next 4 years.
Jobs and Training
- Support for the economy to protect £500,000 jobs.
- Statutory redundancy pay up from £350 to £380 a week.
- Flexible new deal providing extra support for people out of work for a 12 month period.
- All under-25s who have been out of work for a year will be offered a job or training place with extra money for those in training.
- £17.7bn extra funding for job centres.
- £250m funding for people seeing work experience in growth industries.
- Funding to create 54,000 new places in sixth form education.
Tax
- Income tax to rise to 50% for those earning more than £150,000 from April 2010.
- Tax relief on pensions to be reduced for people earning more than £150,000 a year from April 2011.
Other Information
- UK economy due to shrink by 3.5% this year.
- Economy will start to grow by the end of 2009.
- £2,000 discount (50% of the discount provided by motor industry) on a new car when a buyer scraps their previous vehicle which is more than 10 years old.
- Inflation target of 2%.
- £500m to restart stalled housing projects.
