With Britain “walking tall again” the Chancellor sought to introduce a number of measures to support savers and to reduce the tax burden of working families. Below you will find a summary of the key points of the Budget, a full report can be found in the Budget 2015 document at the bottom of the page.
Savings and Pensions
- 5 million pensioners will be given the option to access their annuities, with the 55% tax charge abolished and tax applied at marginal rate
- A fully flexible ISA (FISA?) to enable investors to take money out of an ISA and put it back in again in the same tax year without affecting their annual allowance
- A Help to Buy ISA to support first time buyers to get on the property ladder, every £200 saved will be topped up by the Government by £50
- A new Personal Savings Allowance from April 2016 whereby the first £1,000 of savings interest will be tax free
- Lifetime Allowance on pensions to reduce to £1million from 2016, the allowance is to be indexed from 2018
Personal Taxation
- Personal allowance to increase to £10,800 from 2016/17 and £11,000 from 2017/18
- Transferable personal allowance to increase to £1,100
- Higher rate tax threshold to rise at above inflation to £43,300 in 2017/18
- Annual paper self assessment tax returns are to be abolished
- Class 2 National Insurance Contributions are to be abolished for the self employed
Miscellaneous
- The planned fuel duty increase scheduled for September will be cancelled
- Beer, spirits and cider duties to decrease, no change for wine or tobacco
- A review of Inheritance Tax avoidance through “deeds of variation” is planned
As always the devil will be in the detail, however, we see the Budget announcements as broadly positive. For full commentary please see our Budget report which can be downloaded below.