Rob Chedzoy, tax partner at South West accountancy firm Milsted Langdon, cautioned that Chancellor Jeremy Hunt had targeted individuals with tax cuts at the expense of small businesses.
He said the Chancellor had placed a heavy emphasis on relieving the financial burden on families and working individuals following a period of high living costs and inflation. 
The headline tax cut of 2% on employee National Insurance Contributions, set to fall to 8% for employees and 6% for the self-employed from 6 April, formed the basis of this approach.
“A further cut in National Insurance is clearly going to be welcomed by working people,” said Rob, pictured.
“But, as we saw with the Autumn Statement, employers continue to be left behind.
“While a lower rate of National Insurance is great for individuals, there was no such relief for hard pressed employers.”
He said the Chancellor’s leading measures revealed a “person-centred approach to the Budget which reflects the fact that businesses cannot vote.”
Even the most significant measure for SMEs – the announced rise in the threshold at which businesses and sole traders must register to pay VAT from £85,000 to £90,000 – was unlikely to have any benefit for most businesses.
Beyond these changes, Milsted Langdon, which has an office in Bath, warned that other measures unveiled in the Budget revealed a ‘voter-first’ approach.
Pro-business measures included reliefs for film and TV production, arts and performance – with new tax credits for independent UK films, and the permanent introduction of tax reliefs for touring and non-touring performing arts.
This came in addition to some limited support for the hospitality sector – including another freeze on alcohol duty until February next year.
The Budget was described as having “some good news sprinkled within political bluster” by Dominic Bourquin, partner and head of tax consultancy & corporate finance at regional accounting firm Monahans.
He said hidden in the bewildering volume of statistics were some genuinely welcome measures but also some clearly politically motivated ones too.
“The difficulty was the lack of room to manoeuvre,” said Dominic, pictured.
“One of the main announcements was the cut in National Insurance Contributions (NICs) paid by 27m workers across the UK. While this doesn’t represent a major cut, and does not fully compensate for fiscal drag, ultimately we would all agree that we would rather have the cut than not.”
He said the extension to the freeze on fuel duty for another 12 months would come as a welcome measure with many essential cars, vans and lorries on the road for school drop-offs, work commutes and goods deliveries.
“A huge number of businesses continue to rely on their fossil fuel transport and with no inexpensive electric alternatives on the market, those cars, vans and lorries do need to be used as it’s the only cost-effective option,” he added.
“There was positive news for parents, with the Chancellor’s plans to increase the level at which people can claim child benefit, delivering a change that the country has long been waiting for.
“Previously, the benefit started to be withdrawn when one parent earned more than £50,000 a year but the threshold will rise to £60,000 from April – some small assistance to a number of families trying to balance the books when dealing with the rising cost of living.”
He said he cautiously welcomed the support announced for small-to-medium sized enterprises but would have liked to have seen a doubling of the VAT registration threshold from £85,000 to £170,000 rather than a “measly” increase of £5,000 which did not give small businesses much incentive to grow before having to hike their prices by 20% VAT.
Ed Rimmer, chief executive of Bath-headquartered alternative funder Time Finance, said there was positive news in the Budget to stimulate business investment, adding to the big news in last year’s Autumn Statement that full expensing would become permanent.
“This £10bn tax cut, dubbed a game changer by the CBI, was intended to stimulate £20bn of investment per year for the next 10 years. The limitation of this measure last year was that it excluded businesses who simply didn’t have the capital to invest in new plant and machinery.
“Today’s announcement that this tax cut will be applicable to leased equipment is welcome news for businesses, and will be a big catalyst for business investment, allowing more SMEs to invest in growth while benefiting from the Annual Investment Allowance,” he said.
While acknowledging the lower inflation forecast in Chancellor Hunt’s speech would further help business confidence, he said many companies, particularly those in the creative and tech industries, needed to hear more from the Government on how it plans to build a high-skilled economy.
“Cultivating innovation requires investment in skills, and this was missing from today’s Spring Budget,” he added.
Ed said the Chancellor’s transition of the Recovery Loan Scheme to a Growth Guarantee Scheme would be welcome news for businesses looking to expand, invest in new product lines and manage their cashflow with greater headroom. But he said there was another side to this.
“In a recent poll of our community we found that 62% feel that cashflow is still the biggest threat to businesses right now,” he added.
“So while the continuation of loan support schemes will provide businesses with the access to capital they need, overheads are still high and until inflation and interest rates fall, businesses still need immediate relief from their overheads, something the Chancellor did not address.”
