Monthly Archives: February 2021

Hot Business News Today

Self-employed to be offered fourth and final £7,500 grant in Budget

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Originally written by Timothy Adler on Small Business
Rishi Sunak is set to announce a fourth and final round of the £7,500 grant for the self-employed in next week’s Budget.
As before, certain self-employed will be able to claim a Self-Employment Income Support Scheme (SEIISS) grant worth up to £7,500 over three months covering February, March and April.
However, if true, next week’s announcement again ignores the over a million people who have been excluded from self-employed grants because either they have a parallel source of income or they pay themselves in dividends or they earn over £50,000 a year.
Last month, influential thinktank the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) said the Government should act to help self-employed excluded from Covid support because more than 50 pe cent of their income came from elsewhere, an exclusion which disproportionately attacked women on modest incomes.
>See also: Government must help self-employed excluded due to 50% income rule
Meanwhile, business groups have written to Mr Sunak urging him to help the nearly 800,000 company directors frozen out of emergency Covid-19 support, which they saw as a stealth attack by HMRC because company directors pay corporation tax at the lower 19 per cent rate.
However, according to the Telegraph, the grant

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Hot Business News Today

Rishi Sunak eyes hiking corporation tax even higher to 25%

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Originally written by Timothy Adler on Small Business
Rishi Sunak is eyeing increasing corporation tax from 19% to 25% in the Budget next Wednesday, March 3.
Previously, it was thought the Chancellor was only considering going as high as 24 per cent.
The chancellor needs to raise money to help start paying off the staggering £394bn deficit the UK economy is facing because of Covid-19, not least the £71bn the Government has spent supporting businesses.
>See also: Self-employed to be offered fourth and final £7,500 grant in Budget
Each percentage point hiked on corporation tax rates raises another £3.3bn in revenue. This implies that the chancellor could raise nearly £20bn if he increases corporation tax to 25%.
Mr Sunak is also getting political cover to do this because his US counterpart, Janet Yellen, said recently that US corporation tax might rise from 21 per cent to 28 per cent. This would mean that the UK could still claim to have the lowest level of corporation tax in the G7 group of developed nations. According to the Times, the first increase is likely to be in the autumn budget, with subsequent rises.
Also, corporation tax revenue overwhelmingly comes from a number of enterprise-level companies and corporates, as opposed

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