Budget (2): Key points for small firms and freelancers

The Budget promised support now but warned that the price would be tax rises in the future. Here are the main points which affect freelancers and small businesses.

Support

• Support for the self-employed also to be extended until September
  
• 600,000 more self-employed people will be eligible for help as access to grants is widened to encompass the newly self-employed
  
• Furlough to be extended until the end of September
  
• Government to continue paying 80 per cent of employees' wages for hours they cannot work
  
• Employers to be asked to contribute 10 per cent in July and 20 per cent in August and September
  
• £20 weekly uplift in Universal Credit worth £1,000 a year to be extended for another six months
  
• Working Tax Credit claimants will get £500 one-off payment
  
• Minimum wage to increase to £8.91 an hour from April

Taxation

• No changes to rates of income tax, national insurance or VAT
  
• Tax-free personal allowance to be frozen at £12,570 from April 2021 levels to 2026
  
• Higher rate income tax threshold to be frozen at £50,270 from April 2021 levels to 2026
  
• Corporation tax on company profits above £250,000 to rise from 19 per cent to 25 per cent in April 2023
  
• Rate to be kept at 19 per cent for about 1.5 million smaller companies with profits of less than £50,000
  
• Stamp duty holiday on house purchases in England and Northern Ireland extended to 30 June
  
• No tax charged on sales of less than £500,000
  
• Inheritance tax thresholds, pensions lifetime allowances and annual capital gains tax exemptions to be frozen at 2020-2021 levels until 2025-26

Other issues

• New visa scheme to help start-ups and rapidly growing tech firms source talent from overseas
  
• £1 billion fund to promote regeneration in a further 45 English towns, including Middlesbrough, Preston, Swindon, Bournemouth, Newark, West Bromwich and Ipswich
  
• First eight sites announced for freeports in England: East Midlands Airport, Felixstowe and Harwich, Humber, Liverpool City Region, Plymouth, Solent, Thames and Teesside