The Annual Investment Allowance (AIA) which provides businesses with a 100% write off against profits when they acquire plant and machinery has been temporarily increased from £200,000 to £1 million for two years from 1 January 2019. This will again mean that the timing of expenditure will be critical. It may be advantageous to delay expenditure until after 1 January 2019 to get full benefit in certain circumstances.
However, the current enhanced capital allowance for energy efficient plant will be abolished from April 2020. A further change is that the writing down allowance for special rate pool equipment, broadly long-life assets and fixtures in buildings, is being reduced from 8% to 6% from April 2019.