The Chancellor, Gordon Brown, has decided on 2 December as this year's pre-budget announcement.
As the Government seems to have overspent a bit lately, the pre-budget report will not seemingly produce any cut in tax. However, the first payments for child trust funds will still be made in April 2005.
The Chancellor also intends to make announcements on Corporation Tax and a review of regulation of the financial services sector.
Our View
The main issue for us in the review of regulation is that the industry regulator, the Financial Services Authority should be accountable to someone when they do wrong. Currently, they are not accountable and it is causing problems.
Because of the overspending, we believe tax rises are on the horizon.