October Budget Update

Personal Tax-free Allowance & Higher Rate Tax

The personal allowance – how much you earn before you need to start paying income tax – will increase by £650 in April 2019, to £12,500.

Higher-rate income tax threshold to rise to £50k
The earnings threshold at which you’d need to pay the higher rate of tax (currently 40%) is going up to £50,000, from £46,351.

Both changes come into effect from 6 April 2019, a year earlier than planned. The Treasury estimates that around 32 million people will benefit as a result.

Lifetime Allowance

As announced earlier, the Lifetime Allowance is due to rise by 2.4 per cent to £1,055,000 in 2019 in line with September’s consumer price index (CPI) inflation figure, which is good news for pension savers. The Lifetime Allowance is the maximum you normally can save over the lifetime of your pension pot without paying extra tax.

There were no changes to pensions tax relief rates and allowances, which is good news for those saving into a pension.

ISA (Individual Savings Account) allowances for 2019-2020

ISAs are a tax-efficient way to save, so it’s good news that the Junior Isa allowance will get an inflationary increase from April 2019 to £4,368. There’s no change to the adult ISA limit, which stays at £20,000.

Stamp duty abolished for more first-time buyers

First-time buyers of shared ownership properties of up to £500,000 no longer have to pay stamp duty, in a move which will help more people get on the housing ladder. The stamp duty cut is being applied retrospectively to 22 November 2017, so anyone who is eligible will be able to claim a refund. This applies to England and Northern Ireland.

Capital gains tax allowance up

The capital gains tax allowance will increase by £300 to £12,000 from April 2019.

National Living Wage Increase

National Living Wage increasing by 4.9%, from £7.83 to £8.21 an hour, from April 2019.

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