Low-key spring statement will be relief for business owners

Tony Medcalf, tax partner at MHA Moore and Smalley, said: “As widely expected this was a low-key spring statement with no major tax changes.

“Businesses will be relieved the chancellor has stuck to his word of returning to one major fiscal event each year and reducing the spring statement to an update on economic forecasts.

“With Brexit uncertainty overshadowing almost everything, giving businesses even more to think about with new tax rates and rules would have been a bad move.

“If owner-managed businesses will welcome anything in the chancellor’s speech, it will be his tough talking on late payments by big business and the promise of a review into such late payment practices.”