The Chancellor’s Spring Budget has been slammed as a ‘flop’ that will help drive hard working people and investors out of the UK by the CEO and founder of one of the world’s largest independent financial advisory and asset management organisations.
The comments from deVere Group’s Nigel Green follow Jeremy Hunt delivering his Spring Budget 2024 to Parliament. It was the Chancellor’s fourth fiscal event, coming just over three months after his 2023 Autumn Statement.
The deVere CEO says: “Going into the Budget, we already knew that the Chancellor would announce a further cut to national insurance and extend a freeze on fuel and alcohol duty in a bid to ease the strain on people’s finances.
“We knew this because it was announced in advance, presumably in an attempt to get as much mileage from the good news as possible with voters who go to the polls this year.
“But the fact remains that the personal allowance – the amount people can earn before starting to pay tax – and the thresholds for the higher and additional rates – are frozen again. This means that as wages increase, more people will be pushed into higher-rate tax bands.”
He continues: “The tax burden in the UK is now to reach the highest levels in 70 years.
“The Chancellor is dangling the carrot to potential voters by hinting at more tax cuts to come in the next Parliament – but only if the Conservatives win the general election this year.
“Against this backdrop of increasing tax burdens, and an economy in a deeper-than-expected technical recession, meaning less investment for businesses and jobs, we expect that there will be a growing number of hard-working people across the country looking for work and life opportunities overseas.
“Being squeezed harder in the UK, it can be reasonably assumed that they will be looking at destinations that offer lower tax liabilities, a lower cost of living, a growing economy, and more career, as well as lifestyle, opportunities.”
Also, the non-domiciled tax status is to be scrapped by the Chancellor to fund tax cuts.
“The scrapping of the non-dom tax status is likely to be a ‘push factor’ from the UK, depriving the country of considerable direct and indirect investment as those affected are likely to simply move to more attractive jurisdictions,” notes Nigel Green.
He concludes: “In many ways the Chancellor’s Spring Budget was lacklustre.
“It was a flop and that which could be a masterclass in the Law of Unintended Consequences as it could push more hard-working people and investors out of the UK.”
