Check out a table of the changes here

George Osborne intends to make the UK the best place in Europe to start, finance and grow a business and will implement the following to strive to achieve this:

Reduce the main rate of Corporation Tax by a further 1 per cent. From April 2011 the rate will be reduced to 26 per cent and by 2014, it will be reduced to 23 per cent

Implement its Corporate Tax Road Map, including introducing new Controlled Foreign Company (CFC) rules to allow groups based in the UK to compete more effectively with those based overseas, and consult on the Patent Box

Increase the personal allowance for under 65s by £630 in April 2012, with the higher rate threshold unchanged, a further step towards the £10,000 personal allowance commitment

Simplify the tax system, responding to the work of the Office of Tax Simplification (OTS), abolishing 43 tax reliefs

Consult this year on the options for integrating the operation of income tax and National Insurance Contributions (NICs).

Drop existing proposals for specific regulations which would have cost business over £350 million a year

Introduce a moratorium exempting micro-business and start-ups from new domestic regulation for three years from the 1st April 2011

Implement the proposals of Lord Young’s review of Health and Safety

Launch a public thematic review to reduce the stock of regulation, with a presumption that burdensome regulations will be removed

Streamline the system for planning applications and introduce new fast-track planning for major infrastructure

Reform the Enterprise Investment Scheme (EIS) and Venture Capital Trusts, including raising the rate of EIS income tax relief to 30 per cent from April 2011;

Increase the SME rate of R&D tax credit to 200 per cent from April 2011 and 225 per cent from April 2012

Double the lifetime limit for Entrepreneurs Relief to £10 million

Invest £100 million in science capital development; and launch the first Technology and Innovation Centre in high value manufacturing.

Extend the limit for capital allowances short life assets election from four to eight years

Establish 21 new Enterprise Zones

Fund an additional 80,000 work experience places for young people, ensuring upto 100,000 places will be available over the next two years

Fund up to 50,000 additional apprenticeship places over the next four years and expand the University Technical Colleges programme to establish at least 24 new colleges.

Change the underlying indexation basis for direct taxes to the Consumer Prices Index (CPI) from April 2012. For the duration of this Parliament, the annual increases in the employer NICs threshold, the age related allowance and other thresholds for older people will be over-indexed compared to the CPI and will increase by the equivalent of the Retail Prices Index (RPI)

Cut fuel duty by 1 pence per litre on Budget day. The fuel duty escalator will be replaced with a fair fuel stabiliser that increases tax on North Sea oil production when oil prices are high. The April 2011 inflation-only increase will be delayed to January 2012. The April 2012 increase will be delayed to August 2012. The Government will increase the Supplementary Charge on oil and gas production to 32 per cent from 24 March 2011

The Plan for Growth published alongside this Budget, contains four overarching ambitions that will ensure progress is made towards achieving strong, sustainable and balanced growth. The ambitions are to:

· create the most competitive tax system in the G20;
· make the UK the best place in Europe to start, finance and grow a business;
· encourage investment and exports as a route to a more balanced economy; and
· create a more educated workforce that is the most flexible in Europe.

• A place to interact with your consumers and potential consumers – brand building in its crudest sense.
• A means to manage customer interactions and feedback.
• A source of relevant traffic to your commercial website.
• A means to build a list of potential consumers interested in permission-based communications.
• In terms of applying those goals you need a fan page, and a Facebook marketing plan.

The challenge
Though your window is your Facebook Fan page 96% will come not come back to it after first ‘Liking’ your brand, in fact Brand Glue estimate that 99.5% of brand interactions take place in the News Feed, not on your Fan page. On top of that Brand Glue also calculate that what you do ’share’ in Facebook is actually been seen by as little as 0.5%. Very few people see what you post – they’re shielded from you by the Facebook algorithm (EdgeRank), much like Google tries it’s best to shield you from the porn, spam or just irrelevant search results (i.e most of the internet). So, like search engine optimisation, it’s down to you to breakthrough because you’re super relevant, remarkable and interesting. You know it’s true, as well. When did you last visit a page that you’d previously ‘Liked’ and how often do those brands appear on your wall? But, all’s not lost, you can still benefit from your Facebook presence and drive traffic to either/or your Facebook page or other more commercial web presence.

It’s an art, not a science
Aside from Brand Glue’s data I really liked this ‘Innovation’ post by The Daily Beast. I’ve summarised it in this section. They basically created their own test with a Facebook newbie to see what really happened around Facebook visibility, by their own admission it’s not a scientific experiment, and yet it’s good enough to reveal the obstacles that you’ll need to overcome with EdgeRank:
• Facebook does not value or help newcomers, which makes sense too – after all do you immediately trust everyone that you meet over people you’ve known months or years? As The Daily Beast comments “following 500 million people into a party means that a lot of the beer and pretzels are already long gone”, and the clique’s have formed too. They found that ‘invisibility’ is a huge issue for those new to Facebook and it’s especially acute amongst friends who are already really popular with several hundred friends (doesn’t that sound like High School!). When people interact with you the invisibility starts to change.

• The Catch 22 of Facebook is that you need friends and fans to interact with your updates in certain ways (more on that below), but you aren’t likely to have friends interacting with your updates if you don’t have exposure in the first place. Dammit. The goal, especially early on, is to get people Liking you like crazy.

• The Facebook VIP area of “Top News” is where the gold is at. The current newsfeed system offers users two options: “Top News”, a highly selective feed of updates from friends, and “Most Recent”, a “fire hose” that shows updates in reverse chronological order. The challenge is that Top news is the default for 95% of Facebook users. Again, dammit. Top News will show you hours-old updates from some friends while ignoring newer postings from others, Facebook’s ranking system makes judgments about items it thinks you’ll be interested in like Google does on search results. The Daily Beast say this: “What became clear after two weeks was that it’s not the amount of activity you have, but the type” (more on that below).

• Facebook’s “fire hose” of “Most Recent” is also censored – so no matter what you do your brand cannot guarantee any kind of cut-through. If you’ve never tinkered with the “Edit Options” button on your Most Recent feed, this underscores why you should check it out—there’s a little-used setting that caps the number of friends shown in the feed.

• Links in status updates trump plain status updates – and photos and videos in status updates trump those with links. Facebook wants you to bring something more than your solitary thoughts to the party! Think about times you’ve spotted a thumbnail-size photo from a friend in your feed and clicked to see it full-size. Facebook likes those clicks, it’s links, and rich media formats help deliver them.

• Comments are the not-so-secret Facebook visibility juice you’re looking for – if items you post attract comments from a few friends, The Daily Beast found that it clearly raises your visibility overall. The more people that are interacting, commenting and clicking – the more news feeds you will appear on.

• Breaking into the social elite is hard, even in Facebook! Those with 600+ friends are very difficult to gain visibility with compared to those with 100-200 friends. Hurts, doesn’t it! This is par for the course and a reminder you have to work your way up by doing some remarkable thinking and hard work. So the key, as you build your Facebook tribe, is making sure to include some without huge networks. They’ll see more of your feeds, interact in Facebook-approved ways, and up your visibility with all.

What are the take-aways for you?
Think of Facebook’s news feed as huge popularity contest, one that you get to control just how popular you (and your business) are, ideas and content are your tools.You and your brand need to be more social. In what you say and do, and how you say and do. There’s a reason that some of the kids at school were more popular (not the obviously good looking ones) – they were “involved”, they were social and it made them popular. Here are some pointers to keep in mind:
• Interact: “Ask for comments and likes,” says Widman, CEO of Brand Glue. That’s the immediately actionable strategy. “Put the question first, rather than last… Ask a question where people don’t need to click through a link to give you an answer… make your questions relatable, to drives results. Another example technique that Brand Glue advocates is fill-in-the-blank posts, for example, “Fill in the blank: I’m saving money to buy ____,”. Brand Glue used this with their client which resulted in 210 comments and 13 likes

• Rich media content: Given that this naturally creates more interactions, it’s going to be important that the content is relevant and of interest, think how you could weave rich media into basic posts and interactions, take a varied approach and be topical and entertaining. According to Reggie Bradford, CEO of social media management company Vitrue, “It gives the consumer the ability to engage with that content. If they watch the video or click on the photo to enlarge it, that’d show up higher on the EdgeRank.”

• Integrate: Facebook is not the be all and end all, yet it is of major importance as a part of a social media plan – what else are you doing – blogging (hopefully), using twitter (ideally), any industry specific sites? By doing that you have more reach, more touch-points with your market, more content and content ideas and more points of interaction which makes sharing back in Facebook natural as part of a wider social media plan, the content will be varied and your interactions richer

• Strategic influence: In order to show up in someone’s news feed, you need to be friends with them or fans of their page, they can be fans of yours too of course. You need to target specific individuals and businesses to friend and fan. Even if you’ve friended your top customers or clients, you should pay attention to who their friends are and who they interact with on a regular basis. The more you interact with their friends, the more likely you are to show up on their feeds as well. Who are the influencers? You want to fan as many people as I can within the relevant network, maybe I want national media as my friend and follower or to friend partners and alliances. Learn who’s talking, who are the influencers, the advocates and influencing voices. Some will be easy to interact with, if you’re interested in targeting someone that seems unresponsive, you may want to try tagging them in your posts and photos. Put the ‘@’ sign before the person or business’s name, then select the correct name from the drop down menu, this shows on their profile giving you more exposure, just be careful pushing that too far!

• Commitment: It’s a bit like a new site or a new blog – it takes time and commitment before reward comes through, otherwise everyone would do it. So are you prepared to be cute with the tactics and also commit to Facebook and your Fans for the long haul, Facebook hope so, and in return it appears they will (in an unfriendly robotic kind of way) reward you for it. Though you do not want to spam, posting very regularly is important, just make your content valuable as well as regular.

The Chancellor said:

“I want to hear about your brightest and best ideas. Because next month’s Budget will be all about growth. In particular I want to know what businesses, large and small, want from me. So go on-line and tell me what you think.”

The portal is another example of the Government’s commitment to transparency in policy making. It will improve the way businesses, charities and the public sector can communicate with the Government.

It follows on from the October 2010 Spending Review, when over 100,000 members of the public went on line to submit suggestions on how the Government could save money – such as the idea to stop producing National Insurance cards, which will save £1 million a year.

To submit an idea Click Here

Here are five tips to keep you on the right track.

1. Planning in business is about all preparation and preparing far enough ahead of what you want to do. Remember, Noah built his Ark before it started to rain. So it’s about thinking ahead, all the time. However business opportunities, once discovered, don’t remain there indefinitely, so be prepared and ready to proceed armed with the facts and resources you need to exploit them.
2. As well as the widespread and worthy business advice available from a variety of sources, there is also plenty of rubbish around about starting a business or pursuing a new business opportunity. In fact it could be argued that there is too much emphasis and encouragement on starting up and ‘just going for it’ and there are an increasing number of unqualified providers willing to give this advice. So shop around for your advice, and get opinions from at least two or three sources before you act on anything. If one adviser says ‘you’re right’ or ‘you’re wrong’, get a second or third professional opinion until you have a broader set of views.
3. You’ll also come across plenty of critics and detractors about your business ideas. Some of these critics may actually be helpful and constructive, but a lot will just be negative or downright dismissive. However, if you can see the action you think needs to be taken to move your business forward, and on balance feel that the constructive criticism outweighs the negative, then follow your gut with caution, not reckless abandon.
4. The road least travelled often proves to be the road best travelled. In other words, don’t always look down the same well trodden track as everyone else. If possible look for the less beaten path, which will be less crowded, more interesting, bear more unpicked fruit and lead to more undiscovered little opportunities. Truly enterprising people are prepared to explore those paths and places which in general are where others fail to go, picking up valuable little gains along the way.
5. Although you need to take sufficient time, don’t dither too long in devising or writing your business plan. The detail may be interesting and in many cases important, but if it’s just irrelevant, states the obvious, lacks focus or deviates from your main commercial objective, then you may not only waste a lot of your own time, you might also bore the hell out an investor or lender.

Make sure you aren’t a turkey when you start up or pursue a new business venture. Don’t rush - always prepare carefully and pick the right opportunity for you. But in the end don’t take too long or you might miss it by a whisker, which in business can amount to a heck of a lot.

Most small business owners (39%) chose to absorb the additional cost of the VAT increase rather than pass it on to their customers. Even when considering all the associated costs including admin, absorbing price increases and loss of revenue, almost 70% of small business owners claimed the VAT increase had cost them less than £350. When asked how much time they spent dealing with the change, 46% of small business owners estimated that they spent less than five hours managing the VAT increase.

When asked if increasing VAT is the best way to tackle the national deficit, 44% of small business owners said they agreed with the Government’s decision, followed by 13% who thought that raising income tax would be more effective. When looking for advice on how to manage the change, around one in five (19%) turned to other small business owners for support, and the same number turned to customer support from their accounting software firm to help them make the change.

Taxes
• Individuals with incomes over £150,000 per year will be taxed at 50% from April 2010, with a 42.5% rate for dividend income
• From the 2010-11 tax year, the basic personal allowance for income tax will be gradually reduced to nil for individuals with “adjusted net incomes” above £100,000
• From 2010-11 there will be increases to the trust rate and dividend trust rate to match those for income tax
• The measure includes new powers to vary the income tax rates for the charges that apply to registered pension schemes.

These changes replace the announcements made at the 2008 Pre-Budget Report. The reduction of personal allowances affects those with incomes over £100,000 and the new tax rate affects those with incomes over £150,000.

General Business Measures
• The standard rate of VAT will remain at 15% until December 2009, and return to 17.5% from 1st January 2010
• The VAT registration threshold will rise to £68,000 from 1st May 2009
• Enhanced loss relief announced in the 2008 Pre-Budget Report will be extended for an additional year
• HMRC’s Business Payment Support Service to be expanded for those businesses which are genuinely unable to pay their outstanding liability immediately or enter into a reasonable time to pay arrangement.
• Confirmation that businesses can spread payment of this year’s inflation up-rating to business rates over three years, as announced on 31 March 2009
• A ‘top-up’ trade credit insurance scheme to help businesses maintain their finances, in which Government will offer to match private sector trade credit insurance provision, for a temporary period, if insurers reduce cover to any UK business
• For a temporary period, a vehicle scrappage scheme, co-funded with industry, that will enable consumers who scrap vehicles older than ten years to replace them with a brand new vehicle at a discount of £2,000.
• A temporary increase in capital allowances to 40 per cent for one year, with effect from April 2009, to allow a higher proportion of private investment to be offset in that year against taxable profits
• A £750 million Strategic Investment Fund to support advanced industrial projects of strategic importance, of which a third of the funding will be earmarked for low carbon projects
• Implementation of a package of reforms to the taxation of foreign profits, including the introduction of an exemption for foreign dividends, supported by limited restrictions to the interest deduction rules.

There could be a number of reasons for the rise, including individuals made redundant opting for self-employment. In terms of percentage growth women outperformed in comparison to the national average and overtook men. Female-only starts ups increased by 9 per cent to more than 90,000 in 2008 compared to 83,000 in 2007. Male-only start-ups showed a slight increase of less than 1 per cent, to 300,000.

At a regional level there were contrasting fortunes, start-up activity increased by 8 per cent in Yorkshire and 6 per cent in the East Midlands. However, the number of businesses started up declined by 6 per cent in Wales and 3 per cent in the South West.

There is some indication of the development of the economy over the past year in the business sector pattern of start-ups in 2008. New property service firms fell by 13 per cent and there was an 8 per cent decline in businesses associated with construction. In contrast, start-up activity in the area of health, education and social work increased by more than 13 per cent.

Interest rates have now been reduced six times since October, and the latest half a percentage point cut from January’s 1% had been expected.

The Bank said it would expand the amount of money in the system by £75bn in an attempt to boost bank lending. The idea is that if the amount of money in the system is boosted, commercial banks will find it easier to lend.

Quantitative easing is sometimes incorrectly referred to as printing money, but the Bank will not expand the supply of money by making new banknotes. Instead, it will buy assets - such as government securities (gilts) and corporate bonds. But as it will not borrow to fund the purchases, it is creating new money. Though this latest cut should help support business and consumer confidence, it it may not have a dramatic impact on the cost or availability of credit.