Historically, there has always been a healthy separation of powers between numbers 10 and 11 Downing Street.
The Treasury and Chancellor in some ways have acted to curb the wilder instincts of number 10, the Prime Minister and the rest of the cabinet.
Last week, this uneasy split in government was dealt a lethal blow.
The Chancellor, Sajid Javid, resigned rather than accept the dismissal of his advisors and the acceptance of new advisors based at number 10. At a stroke, Boris Johnson and his team have wrestled back control of the number crunching and to some extent disempowered the Treasury mandarins.
We are holding our breath as we do not want the present budget date, 11 March 2020, to be changed. As you can imagine, organising changes to our published output for 2020-21 depends on government keeping to its agreed dates and deadlines.
What can we expect in the forthcoming budget?
There are rumours that Inheritance Tax may be reformed, reducing the present 40% rate to say 10% and scrapping many of the exemptions.
Pension’s tax relief may also be changed. There has been much commentary about the amount of tax relief that is afforded to higher rate taxpayers on contributions into approved schemes. Perhaps we will see a cap placed on relief that can be claimed. This would generate a sizeable tax-take for the Treasury.
Also under consideration is a Mansions Tax, a levy on homeowners with larger properties.
All eyes are now on the new Chancellor, Rishi Sunak, who has less than a month to prepare himself for his first trip to the despatch box.
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