Entrepreneurs and the Autumn Budget: Opportunities to Watch

For business owners and entrepreneurs, the Autumn Budget is more than a set-piece event on the financial calendar. It can directly shape the way you grow your business, structure your income and protect your long-term wealth. With the 2025 Autumn Budget approaching, many entrepreneurs are rightly asking: “What opportunities should I be aware of, and what can I do to prepare now?”

At Oakmere Wealth, we understand the unique challenges of entrepreneurship. Running a business means balancing competing priorities - investing in growth, safeguarding cash flow, protecting your family and planning for eventual exit or succession. Against that backdrop, a Budget announcement can either create opportunities or introduce new hurdles. The good news is that by preparing ahead of time, you can respond from a position of clarity and confidence.

Areas That Could Impact Entrepreneurs

1. Business tax reliefs

Corporation tax rates and allowances for business investment could be covered in the Budget. Reliefs on equipment, research and development, or innovation incentives can directly affect how much of your profit is reinvested versus taxed. While these reliefs create powerful opportunities, they are also vulnerable to being scaled back when governments look for new revenue streams.

Reviewing your use of reliefs ahead of Budget day allows you to make decisions on what is available now, while still planning conservatively for potential reductions. It’s about striking the balance between agility and stability. However, there may not be any changes or they may not be immediate o this must also be taken into account.

2. Capital gains planning

For entrepreneurs, capital gains rules can be pivotal - particularly when selling or restructuring a business. Any changes to Capital Gains Tax (CGT), including reliefs such as Business Asset Disposal Relief, could affect the value you ultimately extract.

By taking time now to review your exit or succession plans, you give yourself more flexibility. Even if you’re not planning to sell imminently, ensuring your strategy reflects both current rules and potential scenarios helps protect the long-term value of your hard work.

3. Pensions and personal wealth extraction

One of the ongoing challenges for business owners is deciding how best to pay themselves. Should you take more salary, dividends, or make greater use of pension contributions? The Autumn Budget may touch on dividend taxation or pension allowances, meaning that the choices you make today could look very different after new announcements.

By reviewing your strategy in advance, you can make decisions regarding the use of today’s allowances and tax reliefs while setting yourself up for sustainable income. Even small adjustments can make a meaningful difference over the long term.

4. Succession and exit planning

For many entrepreneurs, the ultimate goal isn’t simply growth - it’s freedom. That might mean selling the business, stepping back to spend more time with family or passing it on to the next generation.

Preparing your succession plan now allows you to stay ahead of reforms, ensuring you can pass on wealth in the most tax-efficient and values-driven way. It’s about protecting your legacy while also giving you peace of mind in the present.

Turning Uncertainty into Opportunity

Uncertainty often prompts hesitation, but it doesn’t need to. By reviewing, you secure the benefits available today and give yourself options for tomorrow. Entrepreneurs thrive on taking calculated risks and making decisions with imperfect information - aspects of financial planning can work in the same way. It’s about building resilience into your strategy so that any changes don’t derail your long-term vision.

The Autumn Budget may change allowances or introduce new rules, but it doesn’t change the fundamentals of good planning: clarity, foresight and the discipline to take action.

Looking Ahead with Confidence

At Oakmere Wealth, we believe that financial planning for entrepreneurs is about much more than tax efficiency. It’s about helping you create the life and legacy your hard work deserves - one built on clarity, confidence and choice.

By reviewing your strategy ahead of the Autumn Budget, you take control of the things within your reach, so that whatever is announced, you remain firmly on track. If you’d like to explore how to align your business and personal finances before the Budget, we’d be delighted to guide you.

Because true wealth isn’t just about money - it’s about creating freedom, security and opportunity for yourself and those you care about.

The value of an investment with St. James's Place will be directly linked to the performance of the funds selected and may fall as well as rise. You may get back less than the amount invested.

The levels and bases of taxation and reliefs from taxation can change at any time. Tax relief is dependent on individual circumstances.

Please note that advice with regard to exit strategy planning may involve the referral to a service that is separate and distinct to those offered by St. James's Place

SJP Approved: 25/11/2025