What we’re looking out for in the Budget

With the budget set to be announced this week, we at Autoweb Design have put together some of the key things that we will be looking out for and why.

The COVID bill now sits at around £300bn and logic dictates that this might be clawed back by some tax rate increases. We hope that an improving economy will be able to provide additional tax revenue as a result of rising income and profits but it does look like some rates could be moved in order to increase tax revenue in the short term.

1. Business rates – The high street has been hammered during the COVID pandemic for obvious reasons. Could business rates be adjusted to help the high street to recover and prosper? If so then this could provide a significant boost to the physical retail element that is so important to dealerships.
2. Online Retail tax – As part of the review into business rates, could the government impose additional taxes on online sales in order to balance the books? If so then this could alter the strategy that dealerships take when looking at direct online sales vs funnelling traffic to dealerships, which will be the priority?
3. Delivery tax – Online retail has clearly fared better than physical retail during the pandemic and one area that could be looked at is a tax on delivery fees. This would be consistent with green initiatives. Again, how will this then impact on how dealerships focus on selling vehicles?
4. Income and corporation tax – We will be looking out for commentary on these as the spending power of the consumer is going to be key coming out of lockdown

In addition to the above, we will be really interested to see what is said about green initiatives in automotive, electrification and incentives to buy/trade-in.

It will certainly be an interesting budget.