Reeves hands small businesses sour cocktail in Autumn Budget November 26, 2025 Small and mudiec-sized businesses (SMEs) now face a sour cocktail of higher taxes, rising costs, and tighter margins following Rachel Reeves’ second Budget as Chancellor. Dividend taxes are up, income tax and National Insurance thresholds remain frozen until 2030-31, and salary-sacrifice pension reliefs are being curtailed. For many small business owners, the Budget will feel [...]
Autumn Budget: Shares tumble as Reeves taxes bookies higher November 26, 2025 Shares in British betting and gaming firms, including Entain, William Hill UK, Evoke, and Flutter, fell sharply after Rachel Reeves revealed upcoming increases in gambling duties in her Autumn Budget. Shares in those and other publicly-listed companies were down between one and 19 per cent by 12:38 on Wednesday. The forcasted tax changes sent investors [...]
Budget: Treasury focused on ‘closing tax gap’ with US-style whistleblower scheme November 26, 2025 Rachel Reeves revealed in her Budget that the government continues to focus on closing the tax gap, with new measures set to raise an additional £2bn in tax revenue by 2029-30. The Chancellor pledged that the government will target “fraudulent businesses” that don’t pay their tax by providing HMRC with new compliance powers. A large [...]
Autumn Budget: Reeves bets on AI – but did she play her strongest card last week? November 26, 2025 Rachel Reeves delivered what many had dubbed the “most anticipated Budget in years”, with industry eyes fixed on how she would position the UK in the global AI race. But just minutes before she even stood up at the despatch box, the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) unexpectedly leaked forecasts, fuelling speculation about the state [...]
Autumn Budget: Reeves targets job market with skills package November 26, 2025 Rachel Reeves has used today’s Autumn Budget to unveil a sweeping £1.5bn skills package aimed at tackling the UK’s entrenched labour shortages and sluggish productivity. The Chancellor said the country “cannot compete without investing in our people”, pitching the reforms as central to her long-term economic renewal plan. The measures represent the biggest shake-up of [...]
Autumn Budget: Reeves pledges local NHS care and £300m tech boost November 26, 2025 Rachel Reeves today unveiled a major NHS shake-up in her Autumn Budget, promising faster, local treatment and a tech-driven productivity boost. “We will renew our national health service”, Reeves claimed, highlighting a dual approach aimed at cutting waiting times while modernising frontline services. At the centre of the plan are 250 new Neighbourhood Health Centres, [...]
Consumer confidence is ‘bleak’ ahead of Budget November 21, 2025 Consumer confidence has cratered ahead of the Budget according to a leading survey closely monitored by policymakers at the Treasury and Bank of England. The GfK consumer confidence barometer has shown the overall index falling to -19 in November, slightly lower than at the same time a year ago. The survey of around 2,000 individuals [...]
Banks back in Reeves’ tax targets amid Budget whiplash November 18, 2025 Britain’s banking giants are back in the Budget crosshairs as Chancellor Rachel Reeves mulls a tax raid on lenders’ profits. Banks had been expected to be spared from a tax grab in the forthcoming Budget due to Reeves’ inclination to protect the financial services sector, following a concerted lobbying effort by top finance chiefs. But [...]
‘Shenanigans’: Did the OBR save Reeves from hiking income taxes at the Budget? November 18, 2025 For weeks, Chancellor Rachel Reeves had been engaged in an extraordinary communications exercise of expectation management, leading Brits to believe that income tax was about to hiked for the first time in 50 years. In an unusual press conference earlier this month, she told journalists that everyone would have to contribute to the Labour government’s [...]
Brits on state pension to be caught by income tax for first time November 14, 2025 All Brits on the full state pension will be dragged into paying income tax in 2027 for the first time, researchers have warned, amid growing speculation that thresholds will be frozen for an extended period. The Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) think tank has warned that 100 per cent of those on the full state [...]