Some of the benefits Chancellor George Osborne promised to ‘makers and doers’ in his Budget go mainly to larger businesses.
They benefit from a £7 billion cut in energy costs over the next decade and from a doubling in the financing available for exports. A doubling in the annual investment allowance to £500,000 will also mainly benefit larger firms. But his decision to make the Seed EIS scheme for financing small start-up businesses permanent was welcomed by small business representatives. Also the main rate of corporation tax (for businesses with profits in excess of £1.5 m) drops to 21% (from 23% currently) from 1st April this year. The small companies rate (for those with profits of £300,000 or less) remains at 20%.
However, the Annual Investment Allowance (providing 100% tax relief for capital expenditure by businesses) rises to £500,000 until December 2015.