The Tax Faculty is working with colleagues from ICAEW’s public sector and business teams, among others, to provide valuable insights into the forthcoming Spending Review and the Autumn Budget 2021.

What to look out for

Ahead of the Budget and the Spending Review, ICAEW has been making its customary representations to government outlining the measures it believes will support businesses and the wider economy.

Alongside the Tax Faculty’s letter to the Financial Secretary to the Treasury, which called for action to accelerate work on building a modern tax system, the ICAEW’s public sector experts have written to the Chief Secretary to the Treasury arguing that the Spending Review should be centred on stable funding, fiscal resilience and financial capability.

Finally, ICAEW’s CEO, Michael Izza, has written to Rishi Sunak urging for the Budget to “turbocharge” the government’s efforts to meet commitments on levelling up and moving the UK to a net-zero economy. The letter outlined actions the government could take in four key areas, including providing additional support to businesses and local authorities to tackle carbon emissions and to leverage the City of London’s position to ensure it acts as a conduit for private finance across the UK.

Expectations on what might be covered in the Spending Review and the Budget and the difficult decisions facing government are discussed by the Tax Faculty’s Frank Haskew and Anita Monteith, ICAEW Public Sector Director Alison Ring and Martin Wheatcroft FCA, adviser to ICAEW on public finances, in a special ICAEW podcast.

The podcast covers the consequences of the extraordinary introduction of the new health and social care levy and the pieces of the puzzle still missing, as well as the postponement of Making Tax Digital for income tax self assessment and whether the proposed basis period reforms should go ahead.

Initial analysis

In the hours following the Chancellor’s speech, ICAEW’s experts will be working to provide insights on the impact of announcements. Alongside a general overview, you can expect to see highlights from a tax, public sector, business and sustainability perspective.

The Tax Faculty will also be looking to provide more in-depth analysis of the key tax announcements. All these articles will be published on icaew.com/Budget and will be linked to from ICAEW’s Daily email on Thursday morning.

Meanwhile, ICAEW’s monthly email for October is focused on public sector finances in a post-COVID world, providing the wider context to the Spending Review and its implications.

Make sure you’re signed up to receive Daily and Monthly alerts to ensure you don’t miss any analysis.

Getting into the tax detail

ICAEW’s Tax Faculty will be publishing its comprehensive summary of all of the tax announcements in the Budget on Tuesday 2 November. Broken down by tax area, such as business tax, personal taxes and tax administration, this valuable resource will be freely available.

The summary will be published ahead of the faculty’s live webinar discussing the Budget announcements and providing answers from practitioners on what they mean in the real world. The webinar will be live from 11:00 on 2 November and is open to all. Register to attend for free and submit your Budget question in advance to taxfac@icaew.com.