Wed, 5 Dec 2012
In his Autumn Statement today, chancellor George Osborne told a packed House of Commons that there was no turning back from the Coalition’s policy of reducing the UK’s budget deficit.

“Britain is on the right track,” he claimed. “Turning back now would be a disaster. We have much more to do,” he said as he outlined measures that included “new support for business and enterprises so they can create the jobs we need”.

The key measures outlined by the chancellor included:

• £5bn of investment in the UK’s infrastructure paid for by cuts in central government departments
• a cut in corporation tax from 24% today to 21% in April 2014
• an increase in the annual investment allowance from £25k to £250k aimed at helping manufacturers invest in plant and machinery
• the chancellor confirmed plans for the creation of a Business Bank to boost lending to business
• in measures of relevance for those operating expenses schemes and providing services to contractors aimed at maximizing their net income, Osborne also laid out plans to tackle ‘aggressive’ tax avoidance schemes, including providing HMRC with additional resources
• in the official Statement document, the government announced that it has decided not to process with proposals to tax controlling persons because "HMRC’s new approach to policing IR35, along with the measures introduced in the public sector this year, are sufficient to prevent the loss through disguised employment in this way”.
  
• the government said it would undertake a review of offshore intermediaries being used to avoid tax and National Insurance.

Osborne ended his statement: “The public knows there are no miracle cures… it is a hard road but we are making progress.”

• For more in-depth analysis on the Statement's implications for recruitment and resourcing, see next week's December edition of Recruiter.