Well there's a turn up for the books. A budget that was largely welcomed by the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB), and even described as 'clever' in an FT headline - though this was subsequently re-written to sound more wary.
The 'clever' epithet originally came from the CBI who also described Mr Darling's last budget before the election as 'modest but helpful'. Gosh.
You knew he'd done something clever when the British Bankers' Association tweeted that they were "not convinced on the "small business credit adjudicator"". So one of the most hated organisations in the UK is unconvinced by something that's going to threaten their hold on business lending. Excellent.
But what about all that nitty gritty stuff we cover on our workshops for freelances and small businesses?
We've known about the one major change to income tax since December - the new 50% tax rate for income over £150K. This will affect 1% of earners in the UK, so let's not dwell.
Away from the headlines about first time buyers and cider you can find some nods in the right direction for self-employed people and small businesses.
If you're wanting to buy a lot of kit for your new business, Mr D doubled the annual investment allowance to £100K. So this new-ish allowance is now even more attractive.
If you have a shop front or business premises paying business rates, you may be one of 345,000 that won't have to pay them for one year from October. (It's based on rateable value.)
The one threshold which seems to be going up is VAT. You can now wait until you have an annual turnover of £70,000 before you have to register for VAT.
On the down side, the upper limit for using the VAT flat rate scheme has now been stuck at £150,000 for three years.
Lots of small businesses have been complaining about the lack of access to loans, with the suspicion that the banks are hoarding money unnecessarily. The Chancellor seems to have lost patience - hence this idea of a "small business credit adjudicator".
Goodness knows how this will work, but speaking as someone who runs a small business, this is the first budget I can remember where there's an acknowledgement that small businesses actually exist.
Tucked away in the Treasury's budget documents is a description of better online support for SMEs, a personalised version of Business Link, and ways of "providing better access to relevant tax guidance and flexible tax payment plans to help businesses manage their cash flow".
It almost sounds, well...sensible.
Before we get too carried away, it's worth reminding ourselves that lots might be undone with a change of government.
And yes - we might have another budget in June/July.
So if you're one of our trainees you know where to go for the updated handouts. If you're not, there's always the free stuff.
I nearly forgot...prize for the best budget headline? The Guardian's "The Good, The Bad and the Scrumpy".
"this is the first budget I can remember where there's an acknowledgement that small businesses actually exist."
Maybe I'm getting cynical in my old age, but I'm more inclined to say it's the first budget I can remember where small businesses aren't treated as an annoyance whose tax affairs are worthy of extra scrutiny.
A couple of other pieces of small-business good news (although I don't have links to back them up I'm afraid) - extension of the 'time to pay' initiative to spread tax payments, and a promise to increase the number of government department contracts going to SMEs. Some have speculated that the second of these might be offset by the hammering all department budgets might get in the spending review after the election, but as a long term aspiration it's to be welcomed.
Posted by: Matt Thomas | Thursday, 25 March 2010 at 06:04 PM