Steer Your Business Dec 2020 - Magazine - Page 13
NEWS
Business
NEWS
By Warren Dunham
rates). Given these recommendations, many company shareholders and investors should consider
whether now would be a good time to consider
their tax position (especially if they are considering an exit in the near future).”
It was useful to get the thoughts of Jason Varney and Steer Your Business will be seeking to
the opinions of many of our other readers as we
enter 2021.
Jason Varney
Kent Colleges Support
Law Firm Partner considers
impact of the Chancellor’s
Spending Review
Many of our readers at Steer Your Business will have strong
views about how the economic recovery should be managed. Commenting on the recent spending review, Jason
Varney, partner at law firm Thomson Snell & Passmore says:
“Given how eagerly anticipated the Chancellor’s Spending
Review statement was, many may have been surprised by
Mr Sunak’s initial pessimistic comments: “the health emergency is not yet over…and the economic emergency has
only just begun”.
“The Chancellor went on to detail this bleak outlook by
explaining that the total spending so far on Covid-19 has
amounted to £280 billion, with expected borrowing this
year to be in the region of £394 billion. Mr Sunak then went
on to outline the Office for Budget Responsibility’s forecast
that the UK economy will contract this year by 11.3% - being the “largest fall in output for more than 300 years”. It is
expected that the UK economic output will not return to
pre-crisis levels until the fourth quarter of 2022 at the earliest and unemployment is predicated to rise to 7.5% (or 2.6
million people) in the second quarter of 2021.
“However, despite the gloomy tone of the statement, Mr
Sunak did provide some limited good news – namely the
announcement of a new UK infrastructure bank which will
finance infrastructure projects from next spring (alongside
the private sector) and a UK “levelling up” fund worth £4
billion, which local councils will be able to access to fund
local projects.
“As expected given the nature of the Spending Review
statement, the Chancellor did not comment on the Office
of Tax Simplification’s (“OTS”) recent review of UK capital
gains tax and therefore the market will most likely have to
wait until the March budget to see whether the Chancellor does in fact take on board the OTS’s recommendations
(including aligning capital gains tax rates with income tax
Government Kickstart Scheme
Three of Kent’s major Further Education Colleges are
supporting the governments Kickstart scheme.
EKC Group (East Kent College), Mid Kent College and
North Kent College have
stated they see significant
benefits to the scheme
launched by Chancellor
Rishi Sunak.
Chief Executive Officer
of EKC Group Graham
Razey OBE said: “We’re
passionate about supporting the communities
we serve through the current pandemic, and as
part of that we want to
ensure that young people
don’t get left behind.
The Kick Start Scheme is Graham Razey
designed for people between 16 and 24 who are on
Universal Credit and at risk of falling into long term
unemployment. Employers who are able to offer the
young person an opportunity via a placement can
access government funding which will cover 100 per
cent of salary and employment costs for the minimum
wage, up to 25 hours a week for six months.
The Kickstart scheme runs until December 2021.
The job placements must not:
• replace existing or planned vacancies
• cause existing employees, apprentices, or
contractors to lose work or reduce their
working hours
Further information about the Kickstart scheme can
be found via the HM Government website:
https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/kickstart-scheme
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