Britain will allow companies to offset 100per cent of their capital expenditure against profits in a less generous replacement for the expiring "super-deduction" designed to encourage investment, finance minister Jeremy Hunt said on Wednesday.
"If the super deduction was allowed to end without a replacement, we would have fallen down the international league tables for tax competitiveness and damaged growth," Hunt told parliament in his budget statement on Wednesday.
"As a Conservative, I could not allow that to happen. So today, I can announce that we will introduce a new policy of 'full expensing' for the next three years, with an intention to make it permanent as soon as we can responsibly do so."
He said the tax cut would be worth an average of 9 billion pounds ($10.9 billion) a year.