By Anna Jordan on Small Business UK – Advice and Ideas for UK Small Businesses and SMEs

Chancellor Rachel Reeves has announced the Autumn Budget for November 26, 2025 – around a month later than it’s usually held.

The OBR is in the process of putting together a new economic forecast ahead of the announcement.

Reeves’ main focus is curbing inflation and borrowing costs, with the borrowing costs at their highest since 1998. Servicing debt is costing over £100bn a year, according to Bishop Fleming.

She said she is sticking to her ‘non-negotiable’ fiscal rules. These are:

Day-to-day government costs will be paid for by tax income, rather than borrowing by 2029-30

To get debt falling as a share of national income by the end of this parliament in 2029-30

However, it’s widely predicted that taxes will increase for some people in some way.

Various tax changes have been floated around the media watering hole, such as a windfall tax on bank profits, reforming property tax and/or reforming tax on gambling. Rumoured changes to inheritance tax and capital gains tax have been going around, too.

Economists would like to see a business-as-usual October Budget to ease anxiety around uncertainty, but it seems like the government needs time to get

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