The annual pantomime presented by the Department of Finance went off as expected, with little or no surprises. At this stage Budget Day has really passed its sell by date. Everything is now leaked in advance and little or no details are contained in the speech or in the budget documents. The Minister spoke for 77 minutes yesterday and his speech contained relatively little that we didn’t already know about. The Finance Bill is due to be released on the 18^th of October and this is where the real information is contained. However from a tax point of view, there may not be much contained in this either. The ratio of spending to tax cuts was 11:1 which is highly unusual. This budget was one where tax took a back seat and unfortunately businesses took a back seat also, with little or nothing in it for the benefit of the SME sector.

Of course there has been some minor tax measures included in the budget and we will take you through these measures in this publication.  We hope you get some value from this briefing and as ever if you have any questions regarding how the budget affects you, please don’t hesitate to pick up the phone and ask.