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Autumn Statement 2023 – The Key Points
The Chancellor Jeremy Hunt delivered an Autumn Statement on Wednesday 22 November containing some 110 different proposals, we draw out the key points of interest.
The Chancellor Jeremy Hunt delivered an Autumn Statement on Wednesday 22 November containing some 110 different proposals. The Autumn Statement had been initially trailed as focusing on the longer term issues facing the country, but Mr Hunt decided to prioritise short-term tax cuts over maintaining future expenditure. The most headline-grabbing immediate moves were cuts to national insurance and placing the expensing of corporate investment onto a permanent basis.
Some of the rumoured changes, such as inheritance tax reform, did not appear, but there is still a chance – the Spring Budget is due to take place in March next year.
Some of the key announcements included:
- A cut in the main rate of class 1 employee NICs from 12% to 10% taking effect from as soon as 6 January 2024. There will be a reduction in the main rate of class 4 self-employed NICs from 9% to 8% from 6 April 2024 when class 2 NICs will be abolished.
- Making permanent the full expensing of investments by companies in qualifying plant and machinery so it will continue after April 2026.
- The continued freeze of the main income tax allowances and thresholds, the main national insurance contributions thresholds and the inheritance tax nil rate bands for 2024/25.
- A full triple lock increase of 8.5% for 2024/25 for state pensions and pension credit. But universal credit and most other benefits will increase by just 6.7% in line with CPI inflation to September 2023.
- Freedom for investors to make multiple subscriptions to ISAs of the same type each year from April 2024. Partial transfers of ISAs between providers will also be permitted.
- A 9.8% increase in the national living wage to £11.44 an hour which is being also extended to workers over 21 years old.
We’ve summarised the Autumn Statement 2023 announcements into a concise report of the key points which you can view or download here.