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The defining feature of the Budget 2013 is the halving of the expected growth rate (to just 0.6%) in 2013 with a tepid 1.8% growth forecast for 2014. It also looks like the debt is continuing to rise.
On top of that HMGovt is squeezing departmental budgets still further. So public sector IT suppliers can hardly breathe any easier.
For the tech sector in general, companies will like the further reduction in Corporation Tax to 20% and the ‘New Employment Allowance’ which cancels the first £2000 of Employers NI costs (most useful for the smallest companies, of course)
There were some useful extensions to the CGT regime for employee share ownership and SEIS. At last Stamp Duty is being abolished for transactions in AIM and ISDX shares.
Our many LLP readers (including us!) will be interested/’concerned?’ to read that the Govt is reviewing the ‘presumption of self-employment for LLP partners’. I understand it’s a consultation with changes not expected until 2014.
Overall, the fortunes of the tech sector are more likely to be affected by the health of the UK (and global) economy than by tweaking of tax rules. Having said that, the UK tech sector has such a divergence of performance - and it’s getting wider each year – that I somehow suspect that the best performers will still do really well and those that are failing, will fail anyway but perhaps a little quicker and heavier.
