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labourbudget2024

Labour Budget 2024: High Street Business Takeaways

Rachel Reeves, the first woman chancellor in the UK, presented the Labour budget 2024 today, 30th October 2024.

She positioned the budget as “restoring stability to our economy” through a “decade of national renewal”, driving growth with a call of “invest, invest, invest”.

The budget raises £40 billion in taxes and invests £100 billion over the term of the government. 

Read on for the key takeaways every small high street business owner, landlord, champion or any other local economy stakeholder needs to know about the Labour budget 2024. 

Labour Budget 2024: Change to Business Rates 

  • Reform of business rates for high streets rolled out from 2026-27.
  • 40% relief for retail, hospitality and leisure, up to a cap of £110,000 per business.
  • Small business multiplier to be frozen next year.
  • Funded by introducing a higher multiplier for the most valuable properties, such as distribution warehouses used by online giants.

Labour Budget 2024: Increase in National Minimum and Living Wage

  • National Living Wage to increase from £11.44 to £12.21 an hour from April 2025, up 6.7%.
  • National Minimum Wage for 18 to 20-year-olds to rise from £8.60 to £10.00 an hour, up 16.3%.

Labour Budget 2024: Tax For Employees 

  • No increase in income tax and national insurance contributions for employees.
  • Income tax thresholds remain frozen as announced in the Spring budget until 2028.
  • Thresholds to increase with inflation from 2028/29 tax year.

Labour Budget 2024: Change in Insurance Increase for Businesses 

  • Rate of employer National Insurance to increase by 1.2 percentage points, from 13.8% to 15% from 6 April 2025.
  • Secondary Threshold – the level at which employers start to pay national insurance on each employee’s salary – to fall from £9,100 per year to £5,000 per year.
  • Employment Allowance to increase to £10,500 from £5,000.

Labour Budget 2024: Unchanged Corporation Tax 

  • Corporation tax to stay capped at 25%.
  • Small Profits Rate and marginal relief to stay at current rate and thresholds – no changes in corporation tax for SMEs.

Labour Budget 2024: Continued Entrepreneurs Relief 

  • Business Asset Disposal Relief (Entrepreneurs Relief) to stay at 10% this year, increasing to 18% from 6 April 2026.
  • Lifetime allowance for Business Asset Disposal Relief to stay at £1 million.

Want support with understanding the impact of the budget?

Get in touch with hello@savethehighstreet.org – we’re here to help, whether you’re a small business, local council, local champion, landlord or anyone else that would like to better understand how the budget could be impacting you, your business or your local economy. 

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