Although the Autumn Statement is normally a serious affair, this year's speech was peppered with humour. More specifically, since Ed Milliband and Ed Balls were silenced by the Speaker of the House earlier for being too loud, George Osborne and David Cameron managed to land a few well-timed puns before the end of the session.
While chancellor George Osborne spoke for a good 45 minutes, the Autumn Statement 2014 document itself is a full 108 pages long – so surely there must be some more nuggets contained within.
With the Patent Box scheme set to expire in 2021, business looking to take advantage of the R&D commercialisation tax break need to act fast.
Lesley Stalker, head of tax at RJP, reviews the big talking points of the Autumn Statement and decides it was a piece of "clever electioneering".
To achieve the UK’s ambition to increase exports to £1tn by 2020, more companies need to start exporting either for the first time or in new markets. This was one of the key messages delivered by George Osborne today in the Autumn Statement.
Chancellor George Osborne spoke of the importance of research and development during today's Autumn Statement, increasing R&D tax credits for SMEs to 230 per cent.
If you weren't able to tune into George Osborne's speech, and don't have time to read news story after news story, here are the headline announcements.
During the Autumn Statement, George Osborne confirmed the Funding for Lending scheme will be extended exclusively for the next year, with support from the British Business Bank.
Although there has been much talk about business rates and tax cuts, possibly one of the almost important announcements was that of a new apprenticeship system.
Investors will now no longer be required to pay income tax on any bad debt generated through activity with peer-to-peer funding platforms, the Autumn Statement has revealed.
In 2013, business rates would have added £900m to the business owners' tax bills had George Osbourne not announced a £1,000 discount on business rates and pledged to limit any rises in business rates by two per cent. This included extending the Small Business Rate Relief Scheme for an additional year after 2014. But will “help for the high street” still be one of the key phrases of the Autumn Statement this year?
