The chancellor of the Exchequer delivered his autumn statement on 5 December. Detail of many measures will not be known until tomorrow (10 December), when the draft Finance Bill 2014 is published.

National Insurance

A new class of voluntary National Insurance (NI) contribution (class 3A) will be introduced in October 2015 to enable those who reach state pension age before 6 April 2016 to boost their additional state pension. Employers will no longer be required to pay class 1 secondary NI on earnings paid up to the upper earnings limit to any employee under the age of 21.

Association of Tax Technicians president Yvette Nunn, said, “This is good news for out of work young people and businesses that want to hire them. The problem has been that high employer National Insurance costs have progressively diminished their enthusiasm for doing so.”

Capital gains tax

The final period exemption for only or main residence relief is to be reduced from three years to 18 months on 6 April 2014. Daniel Crowther, partner in the private client advisory practice at KPMG, claimed the surprise measure will reduce “the incentive to… buy a property, use it as a principal private residence and continue to benefit from the capital gains tax (CGT) exemption for the next three years”.

The annual CGT exemption will be £11,000 for 2014/15, and £11,100 for 2015/16 and subsequent years. The exemption for most trustees will be £5,500 and £5,550 respectively.

Social investment tax relief

A new tax relief for …