A dreadful budget for business
Business Money editor, Robert Lefroy, commented:
“The SME hating Treasury is running the show now and entrepreneurial spirits of the UK look out! Our SMEs have rescued the nation from chronic establishment failures such as Black Monday and 2008 in recent memory but its greed is reaching strangulation point. You can never, ever, tax your way out of a recession.
The 31.5% hike in Corporation Tax, to 25%, will deter investment in the UK and the further nit-picking attacks on CGT and dividends, rewards for past investment, may yield little as there will be fewer of them.
The Treasury was to the forefront with wild and inflammatory propaganda during its Brexit fear campaign, it could now be accused of trying to fulfil its own scurrilous predictions.
The Solvency ii reform of insurance and long-term saving capital adequacy regulation is welcome and will assist London as it continues to hold its place in the top two world financial centres, beaten only by New York. It is, by far, the leading European centre. Paris, despite a brief spasm of Remainer excitement when its stock market, benefitting almost singly from LVMH lifestyle group’s muscle, squeezed passed London in trading volumes, still sits in 11th place in the world league, Frankfurt 16th, Madrid 18th, Amsterdam 19th, Zurich 20th, and Edinburgh 21st.
