A free Budget breakfast briefing will be staged by The Herald and Sunday Herald at 200 SVS in Glasgow on 19 March, the morning after the chancellor’s speech.
The event will be hosted by Iain Macwhirter, political commentator for the Sunday Herald and The Herald, enabling healthy debt amongst panellists and delegates.
This year’s panellists, drawn from the event’s sponsoring organisations, include Fraser Campbell, partner at Campbell Dallas, Graeme Downie, director at Orbit Communications, Robert Burns, partner at Burness Paull, Derek Hanlan, director of taxation at Craig Corporate, Ken Welsh, managing director of VWM Wealth, and Professor Ronald MacDonald, Chair of Political Economy at University of Glasgow’s Adam Smith Business School.
Mr Campbell said: “I expect to see a relatively benign pre-election budget positioned to have small tax sweeteners for key electorate segments, but no overall impact on total tax-raising.
“I hope to see more tax breaks for investment by corporates, exporters and entrepreneurs. Investment will keep us growing out of recession and the existing tax breaks and incentives are fine for smaller businesses but almost irrelevant for larger corporates and growing midsized businesses.
“Finally the chancellor needs to do something meaningful to address the high tax rates blocking investment decisions in the oil and gas industry.”
Mr Hanlan said: “The Scottish business community is diverse, with many different viewpoints converging at this event. It will be a very interesting discussion.”
Mr Burns said: “I am keen to discuss the issues and opportunities the Chancellor’s announcement will bring for Scottish businesses and what I see happening across the deals market.”
Mr Downie said: “Hopefully, I can help interpret the potential political implications of the Chancellor’s key announcements and look forward to hearing the opinions of fellow panel members and the audience.”
Mr Welsh said: “We expect this to be a very political budget with a general election merely a few weeks away.”
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