UK Budget 2021 Government Announcement

As your mortgage adviser, we thought it may be of interest to see the latest announcements made as part of the UK Budget 2021, announced today by Chancellor Rishi Sunak.
New Mortgage Guarantee scheme As announced in the UK Budget 2021, a new mortgage guarantee scheme will enable all UK homebuyers to secure a mortgage up to £600,000 with a 5% deposit. This provides many with the opportunity to buy a home without a large deposit. The 95% mortgages will be available from a wide range of lenders and High Street Banks including Lloyds, NatWest, Santander, Barclays and HSBC.
Extension to the cut in Stamp Duty The temporary cut in Stamp Duty Land Tax for the housing market in England and Northern Ireland remains until September 2021 – the current limit of £500k remains in place till the end of June, followed by a reduction in the allowance to £250k for the final three months.
Financial Support for the Self-Employed Grants are being made available for the self-employed, to claim up to 80% of three-month trading profits up to a value of £7.5k. A further grant is to follow later this year.
Covid-19 Response An extra £1.65 billion is being invested to roll out vaccinations across the UK, alongside studying the effectiveness of a third dose of vaccine to improve response rates against future variants. Extension of the Government Furlough Scheme The Government Furlough scheme is being extended until September 2021. Under the scheme, the government pays furloughed employees 80 per cent of their wages, up to £2,500 a month. Employers must pay 10 per cent of these wages in July and 20 per cent in August and September.
Hospitality & Leisure Industry Support £5 billion has been set aside for Restart Grants for businesses in the hospitality, accommodation, leisure, personal care and gym industries in England, and a new UK-wide Recovery Loan Scheme set up to give loans to businesses to help them through the next stage of recovery, upto a value of £10m. The 5% rate of Value Added Tax (VAT) for hospitality, accommodation and attractions is being extended until 30 September 2021. Investment is taking place in sport, with £25m pledged towards growing grassroots sport in the UK, and £2.8m set aside to support the UK & Ireland bid to host the 2030 football World Cup.
Taxation Updates Income tax personal allowances will be maintained from April 2022 to April 2026, however Corporation Tax will increase to 25%, from 2023 onwards. Larger businesses will be taxed higher, with those reporting profits greater than £250k a year facing the largest rises. Fuel duty and alcohol duty will also be frozen again for this year too. Talk to us We hope that you find these announcements of interest, and please do let us know if you have any queries around your existing mortgage or are interested in talking further about new opportunities arising from today’s announcement on the new mortgage guarantee programme. The above details are extracted from the UK Government website and correct as of 3 March 2021. Further detail can be found at https://www.gov.uk/government/news/budget-2021.
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