Our list of ten surprising effects of the uncertainty being caused by Brexit.
1. The change in prime minister may result in a bonus for some housebuyers: a pre-brexit budget. Immediate beneficiaries to a pre-Brexit budget are people who are delaying in moving house in anticipation for such an event. Boris has talked about his aim to reduce the rate of Stamp Duty Land Tax.
2. The change in prime minister has also changed the timing of the government's three year spending review. Although only proposed back in March, this has now been postponed until post-whatever-happens-to-Brexit, instead the chancellor has announced that he is making a one year spending review in September to fund Boris’ latest pledges.
3. There will be some financial winners whatever happens: the government announcement that it would spend up to £2.1bn to prepare for a possible no-deal Brexit.
4. And...its looking pretty good for consultants and staff agencies as a policy of ‘All hands on deck’by government departments has increased spending on consultants and other temps. This has now reached 1.1billion in 2018/19 an increase of 18.3% over the previous year, with 96% of the work by value going to just six large companies.
5. The figures for consultants and temps have some downsides for public sector spending: they almost eradicate Gordon Brown's 2009 £1.25billion civil service cost cutting measures.
6. Taxing freelance consultants is going to be a challenge: swot up now on the Off-payrolling and IR35 rules! In theory, all consultants will be working for a government end client and will be likely to fall within the new public sector off-payrolling rules. However, much depends on the integrity of the supply chain in passing the right information to the right party. From 2020/21 the off-payrolling rules extend to large and medium sized private sector rules.
7. Although the Bank of England’s recent GDP projections show a 30% risk of negative GDP growth in 2020/22, no one can fortell the actuak effects of what is currently happening; it remains to be seen whether government has modelled the effects on welfare spending and Universal Credits spending.
8. Whatever happens there are likely to be lots of new jobs for potential Job Centre staff In light of recent announcements of increased Government spending on no deal preparations. Check out the rules if your are Starting Work for the first time or
9. Will the fall in the value of stering result in a late autumn cider crisis? A fall in the value of the pound means that migrant workers make less money working in the UK. October is the time of the apple harvest.
10. Predicted shortages of continental workers have not appeared to have had any effect on any of UK's fruit or vegetable harvest this summer, and it looks as if government remains open-minded about freemovement of labour following Brexit. Changeable weather conditions look to be much more disruptive long term.
Editorial comment
Noting that no political opinion either for or against Brexit or any political party is being expressed in this list: it's simply a list of things a group of editors thought were quite interesting!
Links and sources
The Internet
Last time:
Tax fit: 7 things you can do to improve your tax health
And the time before that:
8 things I wish I had known about Making Tax Digital for VAT
