The region’s business leaders are split on whether the Budget will benefit the local economy

In a breakfast seminar hosted by business advisors and accountants BDO LLP in Southampton, around 200 business leaders from across the region gathered to hear how the Emergency Budget could impact on their organisations, with just under half believing it would benefit local business, but overall 98 per cent thought it struck the right balance.

During the seminar, the tax team at BDO LLP in Southampton posed a number of questions to the audience to gauge how they felt George Osborne’s announcements would affect the local economy. 73 per cent thought that changes made to Capital Gains Tax (CGT) will encourage entrepreneurialism, whilst only 47 per cent believed the Chancellor had done enough to stop businesses emigrating out of the UK. Interestingly, at the start of the seminar, 52 per cent of the audience felt the Budget would benefit local businesses, 37 per cent thought it was not beneficial and 11 per cent were undecided. However, by the end of the event this changed to over half thinking it wouldn’t benefit local businesses and only 48 per cent feeling it was beneficial. Stuart Lisle, Tax Partner at BDO LLP in Southampton commented: "There is an absolute need to address the fiscal failings of the past decade and this Budget was always going to give us a very bitter pill to swallow. However, George Osborne certainly seemed to have crafted a budget that will remove the structural deficit whilst still being able to encourage enterprise and business and job creation. It was interesting to see the audience reaction this morning and it certainly seems that the effect will be very mixed. Different businesses will be affected in different ways; capital intensive trades suffering from the drop in Capital Allowances and all businesses suffering from the rise in National Insurance, however the fall in corporation tax rates will benefit all corporates. The biggest losers will be unincorporated businesses (such as partnerships) where they will suffer the loss of allowances whilst finding income tax increasing - maybe we will see corporates becoming the much more favoured trading vehicle from now on." - Ends -

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