Withers legal expert says 2011 Budget is farmer friendly

Commenting on todays Budget Speech, Claire Harris, a solicitor at law firm Withers who specialises in advising rural landowners and businesses, said:

This was an interesting Budget. Although it had no measures targeting rural landowners or workers specifically, the measures targeted at small business should help to reduce their administration costs.

Importantly, there appears to be no changes introduced for APR and BPR a welcome development for rural landowners especially, who may have been negatively affected.

The proposed changes to the planning rules are likely to have some implications for rural development, but other suggestions look positive for the sector. For a start, the Chancellor is looking to boost growth outside of London. This should be welcomed by rural businesses. The decrease in fuel duty by 1p a litre is also likely to greatly assist farmers using heavy agricultural machinery.

The potential income tax and NICs merger is likely to ease administration for small rural businesses (which are more hands on in terms of employment matters than larger firms), as are the rules exempting businesses with fewer than 10 employees such as family run farms from domestic regulation for 3 years.

Overall, we consider the Chancellors announcements to be rather farmer friendly.

Withers is an international law firm dedicated to entrepreneurs, successful people and their businesses.

The worldwide group has 112 partners and around 700 people dedicated to commercial, tax, trusts, estate planning, litigation, charities, employment, family law, real estate and other legal issues facing high net worth individuals, their families, businesses and advisers globally.

Withers has worldwide offices in all the major centres including New York, New Haven & Greenwich (Connecticut), the British Virgin Islands, London, Hong Kong, Geneva and Milan.

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