Shale gas tax allowance will slash the amount paid on profits December 5, 2013 The chancellor has announced a new tax allowance for shale gas that halves the amount of tax paid on early profits. The chancellor praised Britain's innovative spirit and declared that the UK should not turn its back on new sources of energy.
Non-residents will pay capital gains tax from April 2015 December 5, 2013 As expected, George Osborne has announced that, from April 2015, non-resident UK homeowners will pay capital gains tax when they sell up. The chancellor said that the introduction is in the interests of fairness.
Osborne declares victory on jobs as private sector job creation booms December 5, 2013 George Osborne declared the government has been vindicated in its economic strategy as the private sector has created three jobs for every one job lost in the public sector. The Office for Budget Responsibility revised up the number of jobs to be created this year to 400,000. The number of people claiming unemployment benefit has [...]
No budget deficit by 2018/19 December 5, 2013 George Osborne has said that by 2018/19 there will be no budget deficit. In fact, the chancellor said, the UK will run a small surplus – the first since 2001. Borrowing will be £9bn lower this year than previously suggested, at £111bn. This is a smaller reduction than the £15bn some have suggested. The OBR [...]
Largest upwards revision to UK growth forecasts for 14 years December 5, 2013 As expected the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) has revised up its growth estimates. The 2013 GDP growth forecast has been revised up from 0.6 per cent to 1.4 per cent.The 2014 GDP growth forecast has been revised up from 1.8 per cent to 2.4 per cent. Chancellor George Osborne says these are the highest [...]
Osborne is using a brand new (and horrible) slogan December 5, 2013 We've heard it a couple of times already at the Autumn Statement – "Responsible recovery". It's a new addition to the arsenal of cringeworthy (and probably extensively focus grouped) slogans including "hardworking people" and "alarm clock Britain". Didn't take long for Chancellor George Osborne to also utter the critical "hardworking families" line.
2 reasons why the dollar will be king in 2014 December 5, 2013 The dollar is set for a strong year in 2014 according to Deutsche Bank who have set out their bullish case for the dollar on Thursday. Here are the two building blocks of Deutsche Bank's bull case. 1. Monetary policy This year markets have focused on pricing out QE with treasury inflows suffering as a [...]
The 10 best selling cars in the UK December 5, 2013 Car registrations jumped by a whopping seven per cent in November, to 159,581 units – the month's best performance since 2004, according to new SMMT data. That brings the total registered to date up to 2,111,819 – up 9.9 per cent and already ahead of 2012's full year registrations of 2,044,609. "Motorists have bought more [...]
With stunts like this, it’s no wonder we have no faith in politicians December 5, 2013 With the Autumn Statement within the hour, this morning was obviously an ideal time for Ian Duncan Smith to announce that his Universal Credit programme may be late (i.e. not finished by 2017). The pear-shaped project has been lambasted for "alarmingly weak" management, frittering public money (to the sum of £140m) and a disastrous IT [...]
3 reasons why China is running scared of Bitcoin December 5, 2013 The People's Bank of China (PBOC) has announced a ban on financial institutions handling Bitcoin transactions. The central bank declared that Bitcoin was a currency without “real meaning.” The move comes shortly after China became the world's largest trader of the virtual currency. As China moves to restrict the use of Bitcoins here are three [...]