Businessmen give their views on what they want to see in the forthcoming Budget, which is to be announced by Chancellor George Osborne on Wednesday 19th March, 2014.

Anthony Rushton, CEO of leading online advertising auditing company Telemetry (www.telemetry.com).

“I want the government to announce solid Research and Development (R&D) tax benefits for Internet based tech providers.

“Also, there should be an increase in Entrepreneur Relief from £10m to £25m with improved terms for activation.

“Finally, I think the Chancellor should announce a reduction in stamp duty in the housing market.”

Scott Fletcher, Chairman and founder of Cloud Specialists, ANS Group (www.ans.co.uk).

“There should be a focus on encouraging business investment using the tax system in particular, employment of young people, capital investment, and Digital Economy.

“They should also abolish business rates for start-ups and abolish university fees in STEM - we need thousands more engineers.

“The Chancellor can save billions by investing in the Cloud, something that the government is not yet fully taking advantage of.

“It has proven to be more flexible and better value for money for businesses up and down the country. It could save the government billions, reducing the need for so much austerity and allowing government to reduce business taxes to encourage investment.”

Will Davies, co-founder and Managing Director of leading property maintenance firm, aspect.co.uk.

“I wonder if we focus on the Mansion Tax. As proposed, it seems like a crazy idea as it will hit many UK nationals as opposed to hitting foreign investors, which is the main intention.

“We think it will hit our market as large numbers of London home owners will have to fund this additional money annually. This will hit the amount they have to spend on improvements to their homes. Surely there must be a more efficient way to tax foreign money investing in UK property?”