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UK to create more low tax zones.

 

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Jeremy Hunt will use his Budget tomor­row to offer close to £1bn for 12 new lowtax zones designed to drive busi­ness growth and reduce regional dis­par­it­ies. The Treas­ury said in a state­ment that the money could be used to offer tax incent­ives or to improve skills, provide spe­cial­ist busi­ness sup­port, improve the plan­ning sys­tem or for local infra­struc­ture in the zones. The tax breaks could include relief on stamp duty, busi­ness rates or employer national insur­ance con­tri­bu­tions, accord­ing to people famil­iar with the nego­ti­ations. The other eight will be in the East Mid­lands, Greater Manchester, Liv­er­pool City Region, North East, South York­shire, Tees Val­ley, West Mid­lands and West York­shire.

Sep­ar­ately, Greater Manchester, the West Mid­lands and Glas­gow will also share a fur­ther £100mn for R&D invest­ment, build­ing on exist­ing «innov­a­tion accel­er­at­ors» already being piloted in those areas. The accel­er­at­ors, announced last year, have already shared an ini­tial £100mn of invest­ment to cre­ate part­ner­ships between uni­versit­ies, col­leges, coun­cils, busi­nesses and may­ors, which have been devel­op­ing pro­pos­als to cre­ate new spin­outs from research projects. Cur­rently local lead­ers, includ­ing may­ors, must bid for project fund­ing from White­hall through scores of dif­fer­ent pots, in a cent­ral­ised model widely cri­ti­cised by regional lead­ers, who say it engenders a «beg­ging bowl» cul­ture. However, a push by West Mid­lands Con­ser­vat­ive mayor Andy Street for fur­ther fiscal devol­u­tion, which would have included retain­ing a per­cent­age of VAT and cor­por­a­tion tax raised in his area, is said not to have been agreed by the Treas­ury, said sev­eral people famil­iar with the devol­u­tion nego­ti­ations.
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  1. Jim14 March 2023 at 09:58

    In the US, republicans are pushing for more advantages for businesses and usually, those regions flourish. I think the UK can do the same and attract small business owners and bigger companies with the right measures.

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    Replies
    1. Zackary14 March 2023 at 12:03

      Yeah but that took a long time and they have a different mentality. We still need 20 years in the UK to get to where they are today. But it's a good step in the right direction.

      Delete

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