A number of changes were announced by the Chancellor George Osborn yesterday, but there were only a couple of changes that affected UK tax allowances.

Key Points from the UK Budget 2013 with regard to UK Tax Allowances:

The plan was always to increase the personal allowance to £10,000 by 2015 but this has now been brought forward by a year and the £10,000 UK tax allowance will now be effective from 6 April 2014. This is the amount that people can earn before being charged any income tax. However, National Insurance contributions are still payable on earnings over £7,606 at the rate of 12%.

Corporation tax will decrease from April 2015 to 20% from the previous rate of 21%, which in itself is payable from April 2014. In fact the rate has been reduced significantly from the 28% it is in 2012/13 to 24% in 2013/14, giving the UK one of the lowest rates of corporation tax.