B-Day tomorrow: The Budget and small business

Tomorrow's Budget (March 17) is widely expected to bring forward new measures which will penalise small, owner-managed companies.

UKTECH and a team of freelancer tax experts, including tax specialists Qdos Consulting, will be publishing comprehensive Budget coverage on issues relating to small businesses and freelancers on its website www.UKTECH. You can access the information on the day and subsequent analysis, as well as debate the issues as they arise with other freelancers. This service is available to everyone, free of charge.

IR591

The main point of interest – and concern – to freelancers is what has become known as IR591. In the Chancellor's Pre Budget Report in December 2003, tucked away in the mounds of literature that accompany the statement was paragraph 5.91, which enigmatically referred to the Treasury's desire to ensure that small businesses paid the right amount of tax.

Despite calls from professional bodies, pressure groups and other trade associations to consult widely or rethink the issue, the Treasury has remained silent on the matter.

Just how the Chancellor will ensure that the Treasury gets 'the right amount of tax' is unlikely to be known until the Red Box is opened at the House of Commons Dispatch Box at 12.30.

Or it's quite possible, that the details won't be revealed until the forest of accompanying documentation is published after Mr Brown sits down.

Freelancers will recall this is the way the details of IR35 came about, via the 35th Inland Revenue press notice which followed the 1999 Budget.