In the Chancellor of the Exchequer's first budget outside of the constraints of coalition government, the most headline-grabbing items were focused on welfare cuts and proposals for a minimum living wage.

On the tax side, there are some important measures which build on themes for recent years, together with the politically charged tax lock that will prevent increases in the rates of income tax, National Insurance contributions, and VAT for the rest of this Parliament. Corporation tax rates are to fall progressively over the life of this Parliament, but this is a tax-raising budget and a number of measures will give businesses pause for thought.

Following on from previous budgets, the Chancellor announced a further progressive reduction in corporation tax rates. For the 2017/18 financial year, the rate will fall from 20% to 19% and will remain at that rate for 2018/19 and 2019/20. A further reduction will then be made to 18% for the 2020/21 financial year.

For larger companies, some of the benefit of this reduction will be clawed back by a move to bring forward corporation tax instalment payment dates so that corporation tax will be paid in four quarterly instalments falling within a company's accounting period. This change is intended to take effect from 1 April 2017.

It is understood that this further reduction in tax rates could lead to a greater incentive for companies to be used as money boxes to mitigate personal taxation. This has been addressed by a change to the system for taxation of dividends.

From 1 April 2016, the dividend tax credit available to income tax payers will be abolished and replaced with a £5,000 annual exemption. Above that level, rates of income tax paid on dividends paid on shares will increase. Dividends falling in the basic rate tax band will be taxed at 7.5%, those in the higher rate band will be taxed at 25%, and those in the additional rate band at 38.1%.

A number of other measures have been introduced to make changes to the corporation tax regime. For example, companies will no longer be able to claim corporation tax relief when they write off goodwill arising from the purchase of business assets. While this was presented as a measure that prevents a distortion of the tax treatment of share acquisitions, where writing off goodwill arising on consolidation attracts no tax relief, it will actually be a significant tax-raising measure, which is estimated to bring in over £1 billion over the course of this Parliament.

The loan relationship regime has been subject to consultation and a number of the measures consulted on will be introduced in the Finance Bill 2015. These relate mostly to anti-avoidance, including a regime-wide anti-avoidance rule, but they also include amendments to the rules relating to the release of debt to facilitate the restructuring of companies in financial distress.

As has become traditional, the Chancellor has announced a further crackdown on anti-avoidance with £800 million of additional funding for HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) over the duration of this Parliament to tackle anti-avoidance, including a move to raise the number of criminal prosecutions targeted at wealthy individuals and companies. Other measures include the introduction of, at least for now, a voluntary code of tax compliance for large businesses, further powers to gather information from online payment providers and proposals to tighten the regime targeted at marketed tax avoidance schemes.

More targeted measures include a change to the taxation of carried interest. Fund managers are generally subject to the capital gains tax (CGT) regime when they realise their "carried interest" in the funds under management. Some managers have sought to reduce the CGT liability through a number of partnership planning techniques, such as base cost shifting. New rules to be set out in the Finance Bill 2015 will provide for amounts received in respect of carried interest to be taxed as chargeable gains, although limited deductions will be available for actual consideration given by an individual for the acquisition of carried interest.

In a move targeted at the use of offshore companies, loss relief will be severely curtailed in relation to profits that are attributed to UK companies under the controlled foreign company (CFC) tax regime. Current year losses, carried forward losses and group relief losses will no longer be available to offset CFC profits arising after 8 July 2015.

The tax regime applicable to banks has been remodelled. The bank levy currently set at 2.1% will progressively fall and will finally be set at 0.1% from 1 January 2021. At the same time, a surcharge of 8% of profits subject to corporation tax will be imposed from 1 January 2016. For the purpose of calculating the profits subject to the surcharge, reliefs carried forward from periods before 1 January 2016 will be added back and group relief from non-banking companies will be disallowed.

The changes will rebalance the extra taxes paid by banks as the bank levy had fallen disproportionally on the larger international banks. The measure will, however, lead to an increase in the tax burden of banks by around £1.5 billion over the period up to the financial year 2021/22.

The renewable energy sector will have been taken aback by the removal of the exemption from the climate change levy of renewable source energy, a relief estimated by the Treasury to have been worth £3.19 billion over the next five years. The insurance sector will also have been surprised by a hike in insurance premium tax by 3.5% to 9.5%.

The pension industry will be preparing for a consultation on the long-term taxation regime for pensions. The proposal is to move from a model giving a tax deduction for contributions when made to a model providing an exemption when funds are withdrawn. This would effectively move saving for retirement onto the tax model that is applied to individual savings accounts.

The funds management industry will also be looking warily at a consultation on the tax treatment of performance-related fees, which seems likely to introduce measures that will ensure that those fees will be taxed as income. HMRC's confirmation that carried interest will continue to be taxed as capital will, however, be welcomed.

Finally, the proposal to end non-UK domicile treatment for long-term residents from April 2017 seems likely to bring to an end one of the longest running debates on tax policy in recent times.