“Set seven years ago in a different market, this adjustment will help the younger generation access these savings whilst striving to get on the ladder for the first time.”
Non-domiciled status
Also under discussion is the non-domiciled tax status, with rumours suggesting it could be scrapped, or reduced, by the chancellor to fund tax cuts.
RPC partner, Adam Craggs, said that this would “likely to lead to an outflow from the UK of much needed investment” as the people affected move to “other more attractive locations”.
He added that such a decision would have “significant consequences” for a large number of taxpayers, pointing to HMRC statistics which indicated that there were around 68,000 individuals claiming non-dom status in the UK in the tax year ending 2022.
These individuals have tax liabilities of around £8.5bn, which Cragg pointed out is “not an insignificant sum”.
IHT
Inheritance tax is another hot Budget topic for advisers, with Royal London revealing that 56 per cent would like to see new thresholds introduced.
Additionally, when asked if the IHT nil rate band and the resident nil rate band should be combined, 53 per cent of advisers agreed and would like to see a £500,000 threshold for all.
Meanwhile, 24 per cent of advisers surveyed stated they would like to see the threshold at £1mn.
Saltus chartered financial planner, Gianpaolo Mantini, pointed out there was speculation around the prospect of the chancellor announcing the abolishment of inheritance tax on Wednesday.
However, Mantini added that the most likely change the industry could see, if any, would be to cut the threshold in which this is applied.
Stamp duty
In the property market there are rumours that stamp duty could be reduced after house sales and purchases fell 18 per cent last year.
Danni Hewson, head of financial analysis at AJ Bell, said:“It’s a well-worn phrase for a reason, an Englishman’s home is his castle, and there are plenty of younger voters desperate to pull up the drawbridge on a home of their own.
"But cutting stamp duty is only one way to stimulate the housing market and as a tool it’s a particularly blunt one that historically has come with the by-product of higher house prices."
Elsewhere, Laith Khalaf, head of investment analysis at AJ Bell, said if the government wants to encourage investment in UK listed firms, one of the things it could look at is the stamp duty charged on share transactions.
He explained that each time an investor buys a UK share they pay 0.5 per cent of the value of the transaction in stamp duty.
“Clearly this creates a further reason for individual investors to favour overseas over domestic investment in addition to vastly superior performance of the US equity market in recent years," he said.
