An end to uncertainty

Whatever your political motivation most of us will be relieved that last week’s election has created a government with a working majority. At last, there is a light at the end of the uncertainty tunnel.

Brexit

Business readers with any sort of trading platform with the EU need to dot the i’s and cross their t’s regarding post January 2020 changes that we are promised will now happen. At minimum, EU traders should complete their Brexit impact assessments and take steps to mitigate any apparent risks identified.

Please call if you would like our input into this process.

When will the next Budget be announced?

The new government will need to get it’s Budget act together. Our feeling is that parliamentary time will be fully committed to Brexit matters until we leave at the end of January 2020.

Once that process is out of the way we should see a Budget date announced at some time during the first two weeks of February. Ordinarily, we should have had a Budget last month, but other matters prevailed.

Budget issues do need to receive fairly urgent attention as there are a number of Income Tax reliefs that are still to be determined for 2020-21.

As details emerge we will be publishing details and advising clients of any new opportunities to trim their tax bills and take advantage of any new opportunities revealed by the Budget announcements.

Approaching the end of the tax year

Once the Budget changes are announced there should be enough time to consider tax planning options to action before the end of the current fiscal year, 5 April 2020. Please call if you have not yet booked a tax planning review for 2019-20.

It is worth underlining that once the tax year end date passes, 99% of your tax planning options for 2019-20 will cease to be effective.

Post uncertainty

Debate is a valuable tool to resolve what should be done next. Unfortunately, if debate does not lead to informed action then paralysing uncertainty is the likely result.

It will be interesting to see what our new government manages to achieve in the coming months and years now that they have a mandate to act.