
Spring Budget 2021 at a glance
Spring Budget 2021 announcements made on 3 March 2021 by Chancellor Rishi Sunak, unveiling further help for businesses and jobs to aid recovery.
03 March 2021
Spring Budget 2021 announcements made on 3 March 2021.
Delayed from autumn 2020, Chancellor Rishi Sunak's bounce back Budget is set against a backdrop of jabs and jobs support, and continuing COVID spending as we take four steps to emerge from a third lockdown.
Key takeaways are: extensions to the furlough scheme and the Self-Employed Income Support scheme (SEISS), and further business rate relief. The Stamp Duty holiday is extended.
There will be tax rises on company profits, but coupled with a new 130% Super Deduction for company investment in machinery. There was no mention of CGT increases, as was widely expected.
New consultations on R&D Tax Credits and the Enterprise Management Incentive have been published.
In exercising pandemic prudence, the Chancellor has attempted a balancing act between continuing support for businesses and culture whilst not choking the recovery with overly aggressive tax increases at this time to recoup the £300bn plus already spent over the last year (£407bn including this Budget).
Tax increases for income tax, National Insurance and VAT were ruled out in the Conservative party manifesto, so the Chancellor has to be more stealth-like in his approach to tax rises - freezing tax thresholds until 2026 (creating fiscal drag).
Sunak issued an amusing pre-Budget video of his 12-month journey as Chancellor, but his work is far from done if he is to ensure that the so-called "levelling up" exercise is achieved and the UK has a vibrant future across the whole country now we have left the European Union.
We have pulled out the key announcements from the Budget.
Further analysis is available in our download and our webinar.
See also the Treasury website and HMRC's Overview document.
Brief recap – key changes previously announced:
"We welcome the number of measures that have been announced that will help businesses get through the pandemic and help start the recovery. The super deduction was a surprise and should help boost business investment.
Most of the tax gap is being achieved by freezing allowances and exemptions with the only real tax increase being corporation tax. Will this will be enough? I wouldn’t be surprised to see additional rises in the future."
Tax rates and allowances to 5 April 2022 can be downloaded here.
An updated Finance Bill 2021 will be published on 11 March to reflect the above announcements.
Read the new Finance Bill 2021 and explanatory notes on the Parliamentary website.
In July 2020, 11 legislative measures were published for consultation and a further five were published on 12 November 2020. This Budget will add to those measures.
In addition, on 23 March 2021 the government published a range of tax consultations.
Government measures in place to support businesses and workers during the coronavirus pandemic can be found in our Business after COVID-19: Transition Knowledge Hub.
[Gary Mackley-Smith]