24th November 2016

Autumn Statement 2016 – Prudential Analysis

Around 12:40pm yesterday the wait ended and we got to find out what this post Brexit Autumn Statement would look like. Would pension tax relief go, would LISA be delayed or cancelled, Inheritance Tax cuts funded by changes to Business Relief? What about the state pension triple lock? Would it be a big bang or a whimper?

One of the key announcements was the scrapping of the Autumn Statement as we know it. The chancellor had previously made his views known that tax policy should not be announced twice a year and he followed through announcing our system will change. We will get a 'normal' budget next spring then we change to a system where tax policy will be announced in an Autumn Budget and then a smaller Spring Statement, basically a spending review/economic forecast. Bit like the old days in reverse!

So it shouldn’t have been a surprise that this year’s budget book was less than half the size of last year’s book, reflecting the fact there wasn’t a lot of new tax policy announced yesterday.

That doesn’t mean there’s nothing to concern ourselves with though. You often need to get beyond the chancellor’s actual speech in parliament and get down to wading through all the different documents issued to see what’s been going on.

There were many items we already knew about as they were first announced in the previous budget that you may well need a reminder of and there were other bits and bobs the financial planner should be aware of.

Prudential’s Technical Managers have been working hard since then to analysis what this means for you and your clients. This is now available for you to read, please click on the following link. 

Budget