Our experts give their general comments on the Budget 2020 announcement in relation to the following topics:
Spending
“The Chancellor needs to borrow significantly to support his dramatic high-spending budget. The tax changes he announced will not be sufficient to bridge the gap.”
Caroline Le Jeune, Partner
“Lots of ‘give-aways’ in terms of public spending, but the Chancellor is so far very light on the detail of funding the additional spending. Where is his money tree?”
Fiona Fernie, Partner
HMRC
“2,000 HMRC staff to help cash flow with taxes means that other HMRC services will be even more short-staffed”
Bob Rothenberg, Consultant
Brexit
“The Chancellor says there will be disruption to the economy for the foreseeable time. This will delay the Brexit FTA negotiations with the EU and lead to further business uncertainty. The Government should now signal a willingness to extend the Brexit transition period for at least six months to win more time for the negotiations.”
Alex Altmann, Partner
Tax avoidance
“Tax avoidance and tax evasion will only be effective if HMRC focus on the right people and issues and work effectively. The Government’s funding to clampdown on avoidance and evasion and raise £4.4bn is welcome but was almost a throw-away line. At the moment a huge amount of funding is wasted by HMRC’s ‘scatter-gun approach’ in investigating potential tax losses.”
Fiona Fernie, Partner
NHS
“Extra funding for the NHS is welcome, but where will they find 50,000 more nurses? New immigration rules will make finding new staff harder and is there enough university funding to support the requirement?”
Simon Rothenberg, Senior Manager
Transport
“The Chancellor’s announcement about transport is welcome, but who are the people that are going to carry out the infrastructure work on road and rail, etc?”
Bob Rothenberg, Consultant
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