A few of the main points to take from Octobers budget:

• Annual Investment Allowance to rise from £200,000 to £1m for all qualifying investment in plant and machinery for two years starting from 1 January 2019.
• New non-residential structures and buildings allowance (2% capital allowance for contracts entered into after October 2018) which may help farmers and landowners invest in more modern, more efficient buildings.
• Business rate bills cut for two years by one-third for retail properties with a rateable value below £51,000.
• Woodland Carbon Guarantee scheme set up to support the planting of around 10m trees by purchasing up to £50m of carbon credits for qualifying tree planting.
• National Living Wage increasing by 4.9%, from £7.83 to £8.21 an hour, from April 2019.
• Fuel duty frozen.
• £200m of funding to help connect primary schools and libraries in rural locations to full fibre broadband, and with a voucher scheme for homes and businesses nearby.

On 23rd November the Office for Tax Simplification published its first report on recommended changes to the UK IHT regime. Planning ahead is always the best advice here, but on APR and BPR the report summary stated ‘… the OTS’s focus will be on the practical application and complexity of these reliefs rather than major changes to the reliefs themselves.’ The full report can be found here but we expect more detail into the New Year.