Well, the Emergency Budget has now come and gone. There have been a number of tax changes, however its fair to say he hasn't gone as far as many people thought.

Here's the key changes as they affect our members:

Capital gains increase

After all the talk of an increase to 40% or 50% this has been watered down. Higher rate taxpayers pay 28%, whereas gains within the basic rate band will continue to be taxed at 18%.

So this will go back to the pre 2008 regime of checking your other taxable income etc to determine whether gains fall within the basic rate band (£37,400) or not.

The increase in CGT will apply from 23 June.

Annual exemption still £10,100

There was talk of this being reduced to £2K in line with the Lib Dem proposals. This has not been the case and it remains at £10,100.

There are special provisions to deal with gains between 6 April 2010 and 23 June 2010 (essentially they don't come into play when considering how much of your allowance is used) and for the offset of the annual exemption and losses.

Entrepreneurs Relief increased

The 10% effective rate of CGT for gains within the Entrepreneurs Relief threshold is retained. They've even increased the Entrepreneurs Relief limit to £5,000,000 (from the current £2,000,000).

Corporation tax cuts

Corporation tax is to be cut from 28% to 27% from April 2011. There will be further cuts of 1% per year down to 24%.

Most of our members won't be impacted by this though as it only applies to profits above £1.5M.

Profits within the £300,000 small company band will be taxed at 20% (as opposed to the current 21%) as from April 2011.

This means that as from April 2014 we'll have:

Profits of up to £300K taxed at 20%
Profits of between £300K and £1.5M taxed at 25%
Profits of above £1.5M taxed at 24%

The biggest savers will be companies with profits of between £300K and £1.5M which are currently taxed at an effective 29.75%.

Furnished holiday relief retained

The proposed removal of furnished holiday reliefs will no longer apply. This means you can still get the generous CGT reliefs etc on the disposal of these properties (even more important now CGT has increased!).

The current relief still applies to EEA properties. They are however undertaking a consultation to amend the rules from 6 April 2011 - possibly increasing the number of days a property needs to be available for to qualify.

Capital allowance cuts

From April 2012 Capital allowances will be cut to 18% from 20% and 8% from 10%.

Increase in personal allowance

There will be an increase in the personal allowance to £7,475 from April 2011. However to pay for this they will reduce the basic rate band by £2,500 and the NIC Upper earnings limit by £1,650. The final figures will be announced in the Autumn.

The rates of income tax remain the same.

NIC to increase

As previously proposed NIC will increase by 1% from 2011.

Changes to Pension relief

They're considering restricting pensions tax relief from 6 April 2011, by "significantly reducing" the annual allowance. They've said that the new annual allowance may be in the region of £30,000 to £45,000.

Seafarers extended

The tax exemption for seafarers now includes individuals resident in EU/EEA countries.

VAT to increase to 20% from 4th Jan 2011.

No specific tax changes to non doms

They've just said that they will review the taxation of non-domiciled individuals. This reiterates a statement made previously in the Coalition Agreement.

No specific changes to CGT exemption for non residents