The Chancellor of the Exchequer, Philip Hammond, has now delivered his first Autumn Statement. As always, there are both winners and losers – and there’s every chance there’s both good and bad news for your finances.
This post is here to give you a summary of the announcements, so you will know what they mean for you.
The Good News
- National Savings & Investments will launch a new savings account that is expected to pay 2.2% over three years. You will be allowed to save a maximum of £3,000. Further details will be announced in next year’s Budget.
- £7.2bn is being made available to support the building of new homes, while a new £2.3bn Housing Infrastructure Fund will be invested in infrastructure in high-demand areas.
- The tax-free personal allowance will rise to £12,500.
- Fuel duty will be frozen.
- A clampdown on whiplash claims will save motorists about £40 per year on insurance premiums.
- The National Living Wage will rise 30p to £7.50 an hour.
- Lettings agents’ fees charged to tenants are to be banned (good news if you are a tenant, but bad news for landlords who will have to cover the cost of agents’ services such as credit and immigration checks).
- The first £30,000 of redundancy payments will remain tax free.
The Less Good News
- If you have started to ‘draw down’ your pension, your annual allowance for saving into your pension has just dropped from £10,000 to £4,000. The government says that earners over 55 shouldn’t ‘be able to enjoy double pension relief, such as relief on recycled pension savings’.
- The government will strengthen ‘sanctions and deterrents’ on tax avoidance schemes.
- Insurance premium tax will increase to 12% from 10%.
- Foreign pensions will be more strongly aligned with UK pensions, meaning it will no longer be possible to extract money without paying UK tax.
If you have any questions about how your business or personal finances will be affected by the Autumn Statement, please get in touch. Our accountants are very happy to talk through your options.
For full details of the Autumn Statement, and what it means for you, please visit our summary of tax and economic measures or download our helpful PDF version.