Pre-budget report: Short sharp shocks for SMEs

Chancellor Alistair Darling presented his first pre-budget report to voters on Tuesday 9 October 2007. Whilst the speech itself was short, it was by no means sweet in terms of the changes proposed. Indeed there were a number of surprising measures introduced which are likely to have an impact on small business owners and entrepreneurs. Lesley Stalker and Paul Webb, tax partners at small business specialists Robert James Partnership, outline the changes and what they mean in practice.

Cuts to business asset taper relief

There has been a lot in the media recently criticising the way the private equity firms operate and the huge windfalls they have been enjoying by taking large stakes in major companies and then, when they sell after 2 years, being able to take advantage of full business asset taper relief at 10%. So it is unsurprising that one of the impending changes is billed as helping to curb this practice.