The Construction Plant-hire Association has revealed the contents of the wish-list it sent to the chancellor of the exchequer ahead of this week’s autumn statement.
Construction Plant-hire Association chief executive Stu McInroy When prime minister Rishi Sunak was chancellor, the construction plant-hire sector suffered the double blow of losing its rebate on diesel and missing out on a new capital spending tax allowance. Other industries can deduct the cost of machinery purchases from their tax bill, but not leasing companies.
The Construction Plant-hire Association (CPA) is hoping for more sympathy from Jeremy Hunt. The CPA wrote to the chancellor last month asking for the fuel tax rebate to be reintroduced for hydrotreated vegetable oil (HVO) for at least two years and for the new full expensing allowance to be extended to the construction plant-hire industry.
CPA chief executive Stu McInroy told the chancellor: “Extending the full expensing allowance to the construction plant-hire sector will have minimal impact on Treasury expenditure. Analysis by the Confederation of British Industry estimates the cost of extending full expensing to the wider leasing industry to be between £170m-£280m – with the actual figure somewhere between the two. Failure to extend the allowance unfairly penalises our members and limits their ability to invest in new greener, cleaner, technologies and equipment. It will also hinder efforts to meet the government’s extended targets for the end of diesel-powered machinery, the effect being totally opposite to that stated government policy.”