Survey: what does the Budget hold for your business?
THE forthcoming Budget promises to be one of the most important for many years and from today the West Midland business community is being given the opportunity to identify what it believes will be the key issues highlighted by the Chancellor on March 23.
TheBusinessDesk.com, in association with leading accountants RSM Tenon, is launching its Pre-Budget Survey to gauge business sentiment in the region.
The past 12 months have been a time of political and economic upheaval. Since coming to power in May, the coalition Government has implemented tough measures to try and tackle budget deficit.
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The Comprehensive Spending Review did not make for easy reading and many of its effects have yet to felt, especially the large scale public sector cutbacks expected to lead to hundreds of thousands of redundancies.
Many recognised the measures had to be introduced if the economy was to be put back on an even keel. Nevertheless, thousands of businesses, across all sectors, remain uncertain about what the future holds and as inflationary pressures such as higher VAT and rising fuel prices increase and growth patterns are seemingly revised downwards, that uncertainty looks set to continue.
How will Mr Osborne react therefore – how will he keep in check rising inflation, what measures will he put in place to support entrepreneurs and encourage business growth?
For example, will there be an increase in duties, will there be a reduction in the scope for VAT, will fuel duty increase again or will new incentives for green technology be forthcoming?
Other issues such as tax policy, university fees, pension contributions and the availability of finance will all no doubt, have occupied his time in recent months but what will he do?
During his recent visit to Land Rover, Mr Osborne highlighted how important a successful manufacturing sector is to securing the Government’s intention of sustained economic growth. Therefore, are measures likely to be introduced to support this?
Your answers matter and knowing how time is precious for those running businesses, we have made the survey quick and simple – it will take you just minutes to complete but will provide an important picture of what the West Midland business community thinks about the Budget and its likely impact on them.
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