Budget predictions

16 March 2006 / Mike Truman

Issue: 4049 / Categories: Comment & Analysis

MIKE TRUMAN reports on a survey of the top 30 accountancy firms showing their expectations from Gordon Brown's speech next Wednesday.

A PEOPLE'S BUDGET. Is that how you expect to be describing it to your clients? What about 'A business Budget'? Or perhaps you prefer 'an economic manifesto for Brown's leadership candidacy'…?
Taxation surveyed the top 30 accountancy firms for their views on the budget and got responses from half of them representing a fair cross-section of firm sizes. One of the questions asked which of those three statements will best characterise Gordon Brown's proposals. Two firms went for 'a people's Budget' and one for 'a business Budget'. And thirteen (because one firm ticked two boxes despite being asked for the statement that would 'best' describe the Budget) went for 'an economic manifesto for Brown's leadership candidacy'. Cynics the lot of you …
Comments justifying this view mostly indicated a combination of fiscal necessity and political reality.George Bull for Baker Tilly said that 'the Budget will be...

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