The Chancellor, John Healey, has delivered his first fiscal statement in the Autumn Budget 2026.
So which of the announcements actually matter to business owners, entrepreneurs, investors, and individuals looking to protect their wealth?
As is the case with so many budgets some create opportunities. Others may increase costs, change the tax treatment of income and investments, or influence decisions you were already considering.
This means the important question isn’t simply, 'What's changed?'
Instead it’s, 'What could these changes mean for me, and is there anything I should be thinking about now?'
Below, we’ve picked out the tax changes we think matter most to our clients, together with some planning considerations for each one. Here are quick links to the key sections:
For eligible founders and significant early investors in high-growth, innovative UK companies, the government is introducing a new 10% Capital Gains Tax (CGT) rate on qualifying gains of up to £10m over an individual's lifetime.
The relief is due to apply to qualifying disposals made on or after 6 April 2027.
With regards to who qualifies, the Government has launched a technical consultation on the detail of the rules. Under the current proposed conditions an individual would need to:
The company would also need to meet a number of conditions, including having turnover of at least £10m and at least 15 qualifying full-time employees in the accounting period before disposal.
It would then need to satisfy at least 2 of 3 proposed growth and innovation tests:
That makes this a potentially very valuable relief but one that's aimed specifically at founders who have built businesses demonstrating significant growth or innovation albeit this is subject to finalisation.
At the same time, Business Asset Disposal Relief (BADR) is being restricted. From 6 April 2027, the lifetime limit on qualifying gains will fall from £1m to £500,000, with qualifying gains taxed at the existing BADR rate of 18%.
There is another detail worth noting. Under the proposed rules, the £10m Lifetime Founders’ Relief limit would be reduced by amounts claimed against the BADR and Investors’ Relief lifetime limits from 6 April 2027. So these reliefs shouldn't automatically be viewed as separate allowances that can simply be stacked one on top of the other!
Planning and consideration: If you're building a business that could eventually meet these conditions, don't wait until a sale is imminent to consider the relief. Ownership structure, residency, record keeping, R&D claims and the timing of a disposal could all influence if you qualify. Be sure to understand the proposed rules early on in order to open up your options later.
The Income Tax rates on savings and property income will increase by 2 percentage points above those already announced in the Autumn Budget 2025. This will take effect from April 2027 and means the rates will look as follows:
| Savings tax | Property tax | |
| Basic-rate | 24% | 24% |
| Higher-rate | 44% | 44% |
| Addition-rate | 49% | 49% |
The Personal Savings Allowance is £1,000, £500, or £0 depending on your tax band. The separate standard Personal Allowance is £12,570. The Government has also reversed the planned reduction in the Cash ISA limit, meaning the full £20,000 annual ISA allowance can continue to be held in cash.
Property income may still benefit from the £1,000 property allowance if you qualify. The standard Income Tax Personal Allowance of £12,570 may also apply and affect how much is exposed to tax depending on your overall income position.
Planning and consideration: If you receive income from cash savings or property, review where that income sits within your earnings and how effectively you're using any allowances or reliefs that may be available to you. Map out what the increase could mean for your 2027/28 tax return and post-tax income.
Capital allowances are a form of tax relief that can be deducted from the cost of qualifying assets for things such as equipment, machinery, vehicles, and commercial property fixtures.
From 1 January 2027, the main-rate first-year allowance will increase from 40% to 50%, allowing qualifying businesses to deduct a larger proportion of eligible investment up front. However, the main writing-down allowance (what you can deduct as a percentage of the remaining value of the asset from taxable profits) will fall from 14% to 12% from April 2027. This means businesses relying on writing-down allowances will receive relief more slowly in future years.
Full expensing and the £1m Annual Investment Allowance remain available, so this will depend on what you're buying, how your business is structured and which capital allowances apply.
Planning and consideration: If you're already considering a significant investment in equipment or other qualifying assets, look at the timing and type of expenditure before assuming one allowance is automatically best. The change makes upfront relief more generous in some circumstances, while making relief on remaining capital pools slower. Cash flow and timing could matter.
From 1 April 2027, businesses will no longer have to submit the R&D Claim Notification Form. The Government will also simplify the Additional Information Form from autumn 2027, with the stated aim of making R&D tax relief easier to access while retaining the information needed to administer the regime.
Planning and consideration: If your business carries out qualifying R&D, simpler administration should make the claims process less of a burden. It's still essential to identify qualifying activity properly and keep evidence to support the claim. Good record keeping is vital to R&D from the start of a project, not just when the tax return is being prepared.
From 6 April 2027 mandatory payrolling will apply to:
This means the Income Tax and Class 1A National Insurance relating to these benefits will increasingly be dealt with through payroll in real time instead of the traditional year-end P11D process.
From 6 April 2028, mandatory payrolling will then extend to most other benefits-in-kind. However, beneficial loans and employer-provided accommodation are currently excluded from that second phase and will continue to be dealt with separately unless the rules are altered.
Planning and consideration: If you provide taxable benefits to employees, now is the time to check that your payroll systems, software and internal processes will be able to deal with the move to real-time reporting. Talk to your employees because payrolling benefits can affect tax codes and also take-home pay.
The Government has also confirmed Company Car Tax rates for 2030/31.
Rates will generally rise by 1 percentage point compared with 2029/30, subject to a maximum of 40%. For zero-emission vehicles the appropriate percentage will rise from 9% to 10%, while cars emitting between 1 and 50g of CO₂ per kilometre will rise from 19% to 20%.
Planning and consideration: Electric and low-emission company cars will continue to benefit from lower Benefit-in-Kind rates than many conventional vehicles, but the direction of travel is clearly towards gradually higher taxation. If you operate a company-car scheme, check the published future rates for purchase decisions and the total cost.
Possible reform of company car salary sacrifice arrangements
Whilst there's no published detail, one of the headings within the budget document makes reference to 'potential for ULEV SalSac reforms'.
This suggests the Government is at least considering whether the current tax treatment of ultra-low-emission vehicles provided through salary sacrifice should change in future. Something for employers using using electric-car salary sacrifice schemes should probably watch closely, especially given the already announced changes to pension salary sacrifice due to be introduced from April 2029.
The annual charges under the Annual Tax on Enveloped Dwellings (ATED) will increase by 3.5% from 1 April 2027, in line with September 2026 CPI. ATED broadly applies to companies and certain other non-natural persons holding UK residential property worth more than £500,000.
For 2027/28, the annual charge will range from £4,750 for properties valued between £500,001 and £1 million, up to £314,050 for properties worth more than £20 million.
Planning and consideration: If residential property is held through a company or other structure, review whether ATED applies and whether any available reliefs are still being claimed correctly. The annual charge may be automatic, but the reporting and relief position often need active management.
From April 2029, the Government will introduce a new First Time Buyer ISA for new savers, replacing the Lifetime ISA for people opening a new account.
The new ISA will allow contributions of up to £4,000 a year and provide a 25% Government bonus, paid when the funds are withdrawn to buy a qualifying first home worth up to £450,000. The maximum Government bonus will be capped at £20,000, and unlike the Lifetime ISA there will be no upper age restriction.
Existing Lifetime ISA holders will be able to continue contributing to and using their accounts under the current rules.
Planning and consideration: If you or a family member are saving towards a first home, compare the existing Lifetime ISA rules with the new First Time Buyer ISA before changing course. Timing, age, contribution history, and the likely property value will all likely factor in decision making.
From 29 October 2026, existing Lifetime ISA holders using their savings to buy a first home costing more than the current £450,000 property price cap will face a reduced withdrawal charge of 20% rather than 25%. The 25% charge will continue to apply to other unauthorised withdrawals.
The change is designed to stop savers effectively losing part of their own original contributions simply because the property they buy is above the Lifetime ISA price cap.
Planning and consideration: If you already hold a Lifetime ISA and expect your first home to cost more than £450,000, the reduced charge could materially change things. Before withdrawing or transferring funds, check how the new 20% charge compares with your other deposit options and the timing of your purchase.
From 1 April 2027:
For employees, that means higher pay. For employers, it means a direct increase in payroll costs. The true cost may extend beyond the hourly-rate increase itself, particularly once employer National Insurance, pension contributions, and other employment costs are factored in.
Planning and consideration: If you employ people at or close to the minimum wage, update your payroll and cash-flow forecasts now. Consider whether higher statutory rates could compress pay bands across the wider team and create additional pressure on recruitment, retention, and profit margins.
From 6 April 2027 the Trading Allowance (the tax exemption for gross income from self employment and side hustles) will increase from £1,000 to £3,000. The Self-Assessment reporting threshold for trading and miscellaneous income will also rise to this level.
For people testing a business idea, freelancing, influencing, or earning relatively modest side income, this could reduce some of the administrative burden involved in getting started.
Venture capital schemes
The Government is set to make technical changes to the Enterprise Investment Scheme (EIS), Seed Enterprise Investment Scheme (SEIS) and Venture Capital Trusts (VCTs), as well as improving guidance and reviewing the Advance Assurance process.
The intention is to provide founders with more certainty when raising investment and make it easier for capital to reach early-stage and growing businesses.
Employee share schemes
From 6 April 2027, the existing Company Share Option Plan is to be rebranded as EMI2, with the individual tax-advantaged option limit doubling from £60,000 to £120,000.
The interaction between EMI and EMI2 will also be removed, allowing eligible employees to potentially receive the full option entitlement available under both schemes. The EMI2 exercise period will also increase from 10 to 15 years.
For growing businesses that cannot always compete with larger employers on salary alone, that could make equity a potentially useful tool for attracting, retaining, and rewarding key people.
British Business Bank
The Budget sees the British Business Bank increase its financial capacity by £5 billion, including £1.4 billion for equity funds backing high-growth businesses and £450 million for a new venture-debt product aimed at innovative firms.
That matters because growing businesses do not all need the same type of finance. Some will want equity, while others may prefer funding that allows existing owners to retain more control.
Planning and consideration: If you're starting or scaling a business, then be sure to look at the whole raft of measures. Consider where your business is at, whether you need external capital, how you intend to reward key employees, and what tax reliefs your activity may genuinely qualify for. The most attractive relief or funding option on paper isn't automatically the right one if it conflicts with your wider ownership, cash-flow, or growth plans.
The Budget confirms the 5p fuel-duty cut and RPI increase are deferred until 1 July 2027.
For businesses, the Budget also includes measures intended to reduce energy costs over the longer term. No new policy costs will be added to energy bills until a new Cost Control Framework is in place in 2027. Energy-intensive manufacturers will also receive a 20–25% electricity discount through the new British Industrial Competitiveness Scheme from April 2027.
Planning and consideration: If fuel or energy represents a meaningful part of your cost base, the immediate measures may provide some breathing space, jsut don't assume they'll be permanent. Keep energy and transport assumptions under review in your forecasts.
From October 2027, online market places will become responsible for collecting VAT on qualifying sales made through their platforms by UK businesses.
The new rules will apply where a business is already VAT registered or where it makes more than £90,000 of annual sales through an individual marketplace. Personal sales, business-to-business sales, and sales of second-hand goods are excluded from the new marketplace collection rules.
For e-commerce businesses, the practical impact could be significant because VAT that was previously accounted for directly by the seller may instead be collected by the platform.
Planning and consideration: If a meaningful proportion of your sales comes through online marketplaces, check whether you are likely to fall within the new rules and how that could affect pricing, cash flow, bookkeeping, and VAT reporting. If you trading across several platforms the £90,000 threshold applies separately to sales on each marketplace.
HMRC will be given new powers to recover established lower-value tax debts directly from bank accounts where an individual or company can afford to pay but has repeatedly failed to engage.
The measure will apply to debts of up to £5,000 for individuals and £10,000 for companies, and only after HMRC’s normal collection activity has been exhausted. Implementation will begin from July 2029, initially covering VAT and PAYE debts before extending to other taxes in later years.
Planning and consideration: Ignoring an established tax debt is likely to become harder. If cash flow is making it difficult to pay tax on time, engaging with HMRC early and considering an appropriate payment arrangement could be a wise option.
New Pension Tax Allowance
From April 2027, eligible people above the state pension age whose total income is at, or around, the level of the full new State Pension will receive a new Pension Tax Allowance. This is to prevent increases in the State Pension alone bringing lower-income pensioners into the basic-rate Income Tax band. The allowance is gradually withdrawn as income rises.
Further help with energy costs
Households in Council Tax bands A to D in England will receive a £100 Household Energy Payment from January 2027. The temporary 0% VAT rate on domestic electricity is also being extended until July 2027. The Government says the VAT measure is expected to reduce the annual Ofgem price cap by around £50 in April 2027, that's alongside additional targeted support for households struggling with energy debt.
We'd suggest you don't react to all headlines.
Some measures announced don't take effect immediately. Others come into effect in 2027, 2028 or even later. Others need clarification or technical updates before their full impact is clear.
So, we suggest you focus specifically on exactly which changes are most relevant to your circumstances. Ask yourself:
The important thing is to avoid making poor long-term decisions in response to a single Budget or tax announcement.
Where a change could materially affect your business, investments, or personal wealth, be sure to understand the numbers first. Then decide whether action is actually needed.
The content of this post was created on 28/10/2026.
Please be aware that information provided by this blog is subject to regular legal and regulatory change. We recommend that you do not take any information held within our website or guides (eBooks) as a definitive guide to the law on the relevant matter being discussed. We suggest your course of action should be to seek legal or professional advice where necessary rather than relying on the content supplied by the author(s) of this blog.
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