Highlights from the March 2013 budget report

• Personal allowances will be increased to £10,000 in 2014, earlier than previously planned. But for now the rate basic allowance (start of standard rate tax) will increase from £8,105 to £9,440. But the higher rate band will decrease from £34,370 to £32,010 negating any benefit to higher rate tax payers but also moving more people into the higher rate band
• New penalties for 'inaccuracies' in real-time information (RTI) to HMRC are going to be introduced. These penalties will apply to both PAYE and CIS submissions, making it even more important for employers, and for anyone in the CIS scheme to be extra vigilant about their data and their sub-contractors
• New legislation is being introduced to include a 'general anti-abuse rule' that will be used to crack-down on abusive tax arrangements
• Corporation tax for large companies will be reduced in 2015 to 20% making it the lowest rate in the G20 group
• Some good news is that NICs for employees will be reduced, but this is not until next year. The bigger surprise is the new 'Employment Allowance' which will cancel out the first £2,000 of employer NICs paid for small businesses. But very little is known about this so far
• there are reports that IR35 will be changed to apply to those who work as "office holders" for their end clients.
• There is some cheer with a 1p reduction in Beer duty, and of course, both the January and August fuel duty increases have been cancelled, not just postponed