Budget 2014 key points and how they will affect you

Budget 2014 key points

Taxation

Personal income tax allowance raised to £10,500 from 2015/16 tax year
Higher rate tax threshold raised to £41,865
15% stamp duty on residential property purchased through a company

Fuel, Alcohol & Tobacco

Beer duty cut by 1p per pint
Fuel duty rise planned for September cancelled
Tobacco duty to rise by 2% above inflation

Housing

Help to Buy extended to 2020
Support for building 200,00 new houses
£200m made available for repairing potholes

Pensions (effective from 27th March 2014)

The amount of pension that can be taken from pension as a lump sum (under trivial commutation) will increase from £18,000 to £30,000
The maximum income that can be taken from capped drawdown each year will increase from 120% to 150% of an equivalent annuity
The level of qualifying income for flexible drawdown will drop from £20,000 per year to £12,000 (and this limit will be removed from 2015 once legislation is passed).
From April 2015 savers will be able to access pension savings as they wish subject to their marginal rate of income tax, rather than the current 55% charge for full withdrawal (again legislation pending).
The age which people can first access their pensions will increase from the current 55 to 57 by 2028
The size of the small pension pot that can be cashed in regardless of your overall pension savings will increase from £2,000 to £10,000
And you can take up to three such small pension pots - currently the limit is two

Savings

10p tax rate on savings to be abolished
From 1st July 2014 a new ISA called the NISA will be launched
It will have a limit of £15,000 and the whole allowance can be invested in cash or stocks and shares or both
ISA's taken out between 6th April and 1st July 2014 will automatically become NISAs on 1st July 2014 and the investment limits will increase to the new £15,000
Junior ISA and Child Trust Fund annual contribution limit will be raised to £4,000 from 1st July 2014

More detailed information on all of the above can be found here

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Budget 2014 key points and how they will affect you