Small business owners should be pleasantly surprised by chancellor Alistair Darling's first Budget, which contained no unwelcome surprises and a few bits of good news for smaller companies.
The Federation of Small Businesses welcomed a speech with "no nasty surprises for small firms" and also backed the decision to postpone changes to the so-called income-shifting practice, where family firms split profits from their companies to make them more tax efficient, for a year.
"The deferral of plans to change income-shifting rules, which would have forced tens of thousands of family businesses to create and maintain a massive amount of extra paperwork on individuals' contributions to their business, is welcome news," said FSB chairman John Wright.
The Chartered Institute of Taxation also backed the move, which was only referred to in the notes given to accountancy firms and was not mentioned in Darling's speech.
The decision to postpone the proposed rise of 2p on a litre of fuel until October was welcomed by the AA and will provide relief to small firms reliant on road use. The British Chambers of Commerce had called for the raise to be scrapped altogether but that seems unlikely to happen.
The government also pledged to keep the rate of capital gains tax at 10% for small firms worth up to £1m, while it provided an extra £60m for the Small Firms Loan Guarantee Scheme.
The chancellor also announced a target to award 30% of public sector contracts to small firms and confirmed that non-domiciles - who base themselves in the UK to take advantage of more favourable tax rates - would have to pay a £30,000 fee after seven years to continue to enjoy that privilege.
But the Forum of Private Business criticised the Budget, claiming it had done little to lessen the impact of the 2p rise in the rate of corporation tax, which increases to 22p in the pound from April.
"This Budget is more about what has not been done to help smaller businesses, rather than an announcement of any genuinely proactive and positive measures," said chief executive Phil Orford.
"While there are some welcome initiatives, they do little, if anything, to offset the tax burden due to be implemented in April. The chancellor has missed a golden opportunity to convince the small business community that he is on their side."
