As most followers will be aware, next week includes the March budget statement from George Osborne.

It has to be said that the background noise to this event is not that promising. With the lowering of the UK’s credit worthiniess recently, and some poor figures from the manufacturing sector only yesterday, we may well be on the way to yet another official period of recession (a triple-dip). All of this limits the Chancellor’s ability to make any sweeping changes with regard to taxation issues.

This is rather worrying. The employee benefits industry is eagerly awaiting a decision regarding the introduction of tax-incentives for Health related benefits (as recommended by the Sickness Absence Review). The final decision on this was officially delayed until the March budget, so let us hope that the economic background does not adversely impact on this key decision.

Childcare Vouchers will perhaps also form part of the budget statement. The cost of Childcare is a major political issue at the moment (and apparently there is some discord in the co-alition about this topic), and it does appear likely that there will be a significant change here.

Another topic that may also feature could be the tax-relief for UK pensions. With many billions of pounds spent on pensions tax-relief every year, this is an area regularly considered in budget statements. Recent budgets have seen several major reductions to pensions tax relief, so it’s to be hoped that this topic will be left alone this year.

Insurance Premium Tax (IPT) has remained surprisingly unchanged in recent years, and with the UK’s IPT quite low compared to many of our European neighbours, this could well be a target for an increase. This would have a knock on impact to certain benefits (for instance some Healthcare policies), so I will keep my eye on this area also.

So from an employee benefits perspective this budget may be more interesting than most. Will keep you posted on the blog and via our usual events.

Best regards

Steve