Budget 2011: Osborne announces small business boosts

Budget

Businesses with 10 employees or less and genuine start-ups will be exempt from new domestic regulation over next three years.

The moratorium will come into force from April as the Government seeks to inspire businesses to grow in the UK, Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne said today during his Budget speech.

In another bid to help new businesses in the UK, Osborne announced Start-up Britain, a new body designed to help people start and grow a business.

Prime Minister David Cameron and Business Secretary Vince Cable are due to officially launch the organisation next week.

Additionally, the small business rate relief holiday will be extended by one year to October 2012.

"It's all part of our ambition to make the UK the best place in Europe to start, finance and grow a business in Europe," Osborne said.

Wide-ranging changing to taxes were also announced.

In a bid to inspire foreign investors to set up shop in the UK, Osborne revealed corporation tax will be reduced by two per cent in 2011 and will continue to fall to 23 per cent by 2014.

This will make the tax the lowest of all G7 countries and 16 per cent lower than US.

A total of 43 "complex tax reliefs" were scrapped, with over 100 pages removed from the UK tax code as the Government seeks to simplify tax laws.

Osborne said other countries had "deliberately made tax systems attractive" to multinational companies, taking away business from the UK.

"Our taxes should be efficient and support growth... they should be simple to understand and simple to comply with," he added.

Furthermore, from 6 April there will be a doubling in size of entrepreneur relief to 10 million.

Tech firms, such as Google, have bemoaned laws in the UK as being prohibitive to setting up shop here. Intellectual property laws are due for a rethink as well.

"Let it be clearly be heard across the world Britain is open for business," Osborne added.

For all news on today's budget, head here.

Tom Brewster

Tom Brewster is currently an associate editor at Forbes and an award-winning journalist who covers cyber security, surveillance, and privacy. Starting his career at ITPro as a staff writer and working up to a senior staff writer role, Tom has been covering the tech industry for more than ten years and is considered one of the leading journalists in his specialism.

He is a proud alum of the University of Sheffield where he secured an undergraduate degree in English Literature before undertaking a certification from General Assembly in web development.