In 1984, Lord Lawson introduced a radical tax reforming budget which majorly reconstructed corporation tax, reducing the tax rate from 52 per cent to 35 per cent by cutting first-year allowances on plant and machinery investment from 100 per cent to 25 per cent writing down allowance and removing various other allowances.
The restructuring was phased in over four years, which encouraged a lot of investment (including that in computer hardware) to be brought forward to take advantage of the higher allowances.
