Jason Beedell
Director, Research
Chancellor of the Exchequer Philip Hammond delivered a budget speech which had plenty of relevance to farmers and rural business owners.
Key points are:
- To help stimulate business investment, Annual Investment Allowance to rise from £200,000 to £1m for all qualifying investment in plant and machinery for two years starting from 1 January 2019.
- Introduction of a new non-residential structures and buildings allowance (2% capital allowance for contracts entered into after October 2018) which may help farmers and landowners invest in more modern, more efficient buildings.
- £200m of funding to help connect primary schools and libraries in rural locations to full fibre broadband, and with a voucher scheme for homes and businesses nearby. The first wave of investment will include the Borderlands, Cornwall, and the Welsh Valleys.
- Business rate bills cut for two years by one-third for retail properties with a rateable value below £51,000. This is expected to benefit up to 90% of retail properties.
- Government will set up a Woodland Carbon Guarantee scheme which will support the planting of around 10m trees by purchasing up to £50m of carbon credits for qualifying tree planting.
- National Living Wage increasing by 4.9%, from £7.83 to £8.21 an hour, from April 2019. This could be challenging for rural employers, following a 4.4% increase in the NLW in April 2018.
- Fuel duty frozen for the ninth successive year.
- There was no announcement on Inheritance Tax, but a report on IHT is due from the Office for Tax Simplification later this year.
For more information on how these changes may affect you, contact your local Rural team.