Downbeat travel response to Pre-Budget Report
Thursday, 10 Dec, 2009
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Holiday bookings across two seasons could be damaged due to measures introduced in yesterday’s Pre-Budget Report, an expert has warned.
Andrew Burnham, principal at leading accounting firm MacIntyre Hudson, said Chancellor Alistair Darling had delivered a “neutral” PBR in advance of a general election.
The Chancellor chose “not to address the ‘Elephant in the Room’ (the public sector debt mountain)” to produce a pre budget report “strong on words but light on real content”.
Hudson said: “There are signs that the economic ‘bounce back’ we have experienced since the springtime is starting to run out of steam and we are likely to remain in the doldrums until the new Government introduces a meaningful budget after the election.
“The prospects for summer and winter 2010 bookings will be adversely affected by the expected public sector cuts and tax increases with real danger of a relapse into recession going into 2011 especially if UK interest rates rise to maintain the pound.”
The main tax measures to be introduced:
· a 1% increase in National Insurance Contribution rates payable by employers, employees and the self-employed from April 2011
· freezing the personal allowances and tax bands at the 2009/10 amounts for most taxpayers
· the introduction of a 50% additional rate of tax for those with the highest income levels
· changes to the complex rules for the Special Annual Allowance charge which affect those with substantial income, making significantly higher pension contributions in anticipation of the removal of higher rate tax relief which will occur in 2011
· the deferral for a further year of the planned increase in the small companies corporation tax rate, maintaining the current rate of 21% for a further year
· the standard rate of VAT will return to its former rate of 17.5% on January 1, 2010
· a temporary bank payroll tax of 50% is to apply to certain bonuses (in whatever form)
by Phil Davies
Phil Davies
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