Rachel from Accounts - Growth or Grab?

The first Autum Budget under Rachel Reeves is a few weeks away, and all eyes are on whether this government truly wants to build the economy or simply balance it.

​

At lupto, we work every day with founders, investors and high growth businesses. So, when budgets roll around, we don’t just see policy headlines, we see the real-world impact on the people driving the UK economy forward.

​

The Real Engine of the Economy is Founders

Every week, we see people creating value from the ground up. They’re hiring, innovating, taking risks to bring their visions to life.

​

Yet the UK tax environment is getting increasingly more punishing to those who take the risk.

Founders don’t ask for handouts, but they do need headroom.

• Room to build, retain & reward key staff without PAYE & NIC eating half the gain

• Room to take risks without fearing punitive tax on success

• Room to spend on R&D, marketing and growth without worrying about that the system will claw it back later

• Room to raise investment without losing momentum to red tape

​

That’s how growth happens, not by redistributing existing wealth, but by empowering people to create more of it.

​

Raising taxes to drive growth is fundamentally flawed. It slows investment, suppresses ambition and rewards caution over creation.

​

Rumours for the Autumn Budget and Our Take

💰 Pensions & Tax-Free Cash

Rumour – Renewed talk about cutting the 25% tax free lump sum or capping pension relief for higher earners. Some reports say it’s off the table, others say it’s ‘under review’.

Our take – Constant speculation around pensions drives short term panic and long-term confusion. Founders should resist knee jerk withdrawals and focus on structure/planning, not rumours. We’d like to see some stability here; you can’t build confidence in investment when the rules change every few months.

​​

🧮 Salary Sacrifice Restrictions

Rumour – Pension salary sacrifice schemes (swapping gross pay for additional tax relief on pension contributions) might face new limits, potentially capped at £2,000 a year before NI applies.  

Our take – If this happens, it’s effectively a tax on efficiency. It punishes those optimising their pay structure and adds further friction for employers already facing rising employment costs.

​​

💷 ISA Reform

Rumour – Cash ISAs could be trimmed back to £10,000, with the aim of nudging savers towards stocks and shares ISAs instead.

Our take – The principles right, we need more capital flowing into productive investment, but cutting limits without improving access to equity markets misses the point. Make investing simpler, not narrower.

​​

📈 Income Tax, National Insurance & Fiscal Drag

Rumour - The big one. These rates might stay flat, but freezing thresholds is a stealth tax by another name. There’s also talk of shifting the burden from workers to pensioners and landlords via a 2p NI cut and 2p income tax rise.

Our take – Fiscal drag quietly drains disposable income and investment appetite. We’d rather see clarity from bold reform, than sleight of hand tax rises hidden in the small print.

​

🏠 Landlords & Property​

Rumour – NI on rental income, higher council tax bands, even CGT on primary residences, all have been floated. There’s also chatter about replacing stamp duty and council tax with a single annual levy.

Our take – Property needs reform, but this patchwork approach feels reactive. Tax stability builds confidence, unpredictability freezes markets. If government wants movement, make transactions cheaper and ownership rules clearer.

​

💸 Dividends & Capital Gains Tax

Rumour – Dividend rates could rise, and the £500 tax free allowance could disappear. CGT may creep up again or allowances could shrink further.

Our take – Targeting dividends and capital gains directly hits small and medium business owners, the very people reinvesting profits into jobs and innovation. These taxes shouldn’t be treated as easy wins, they’re growth brakes.

​

⚰️ Inheritance Tax

Rumour - The nil rate band has been frozen since 2009 and may stay that way. There’s also talk of extending the seven-year gifting rule to ten years or adding lifetime limits on tax free gifts.

Our take – IHT reform should simplify, not penalise. If you want to encourage wealth to flow through generations and back into the economy, don’t keep freezing the thresholds that push ordinary families into complex estate planning.

​

✈️ Exit Taxes

Rumour – A possible ‘settling up’ charge for people leaving the UK has been floated, effectively a UK exit tax on unrealised gains.

Our take – If you want entrepreneurs to stay and build here, don’t threaten them with a departure penalty, and make it attractive to stay!!

​

👔 LLPs, Professionals & Partnerships

Rumour – There’s talk of introducing a new tax on LLPs, bringing partners in law, accountancy and medicine closer to the employer NI regime.

Our take – It might raise revenue short term, but it punishes skilled professionals and removes flexibility that underpins the economy. Another administrative distraction dressed up as reform.

​

💎 Wealth Tax

Rumour – The old favourite! Some in labours ranks want an annual levy on high-net-worth individuals.

Our take – A wealth tax might sound politically tidy, but economically its self-defeating. Capital is mobile, it doesn’t wait to be taxed, it leaves. The smarter route is to incentivise reinvestment into UK innovation and infrastructure, not drive it offshore.

​

Our Overall View

The Budget has a choice to make; does it reward creation? Or just redistribute it?

​

So far, the noise and chatter fees like a hunt for cash than a plan for growth.

​

We’ve seen it first hand, you don’t grow an economy by taxing its ambition. You grow it by backing the people creating opportunity and giving them room to run.

​​

What a Genuinely Pro-Growth Budget Would Look Like

If we were writing it, we would incentivise creation, not tax it.

​

1. Simplify, don’t complicate

Fewer tweaks, more clarity. Reward reinvestment and risk taking instead of adding new hoops to jump through.

​

2. Back innovation!

Expand R&D relief, speed up SEIS/EIS approvals and channel private capital into productive, future focused sectors.

​

3. Reward shares success

Broaden EMI and growth share flexibility, scale happens when teams share upside.

 

4. Make hiring smarter

Cut employer NI for small, growing business to reward job creation and ease the cost of growing a team.

 

5. Make policy predictable

Set a 5-year roadmap for tax and investment rules. Build business confidence and fuel investment.

​

6. Strengthen BADR, don’t shrink it

Business Asset Disposal Relief (formerly Entrepreneurs relief) was designed to reward entrepreneurs who take real risk and create real value. Cutting it back to a token £1m lifetime limit sends the wrong signal. A genuinely pro-growth Budget would restore ambition here, recognising that founders who build, sell and reinvest are exactly the people driving the next wave of UK innovation.

​

Final Thoughts

The UK’s entrepreneurial community is one of its greatest assets. What we need from government isn’t more caution, it’s confidence. Confidence that founders, investors and business owners are the plan for growth, not the problem to be taxed.

​

It Rachel Reeves embraces that, ‘Rachel from Accounts’ could become the Chancellor who actually balances the books by growing them.

​

If not, it’s just another round of fiscal housekeeping, while the real economy waits for someone to back its ambition.

​

💬 If you’re a founder or investor looking to understand what the Budget could mean for your plans, or want a sanity check before it lands, drop us a message.

​

​

​​​​​​​​

​