Accountancy firm BDO is calling on the Government to scrap the Spring budget, saying the general election would render it useless.

Chancellor Alistair Darling is set to announce the date for this year’s budget soon, with a date expected to be set in March.

But BDO, which has a strong Birmingham office on Colmore Row, said the move would be pointless because a general election would come before any of the changes proposed were carried out.

Richard Rose, a Birmingham-based tax partner at BDO, said: "Both Government and opposition should recognise that neither business nor the general public will welcome the uncertainty and distractions created by two budgets when one budget is more than enough.

"Business would prefer to focus upon strengthening its emergence from the credit quake after anaemic growth in the final quarter of 2009, whilst the general public will not welcome a further bout of ‘Punch and Judy’ posturing by the political parties focussed entirely on the forthcoming general election battle and not at all on the genuine fiscal imperatives.

"There are no tax technical reasons why the chancellor needs to introduce anything other than an abbreviated finance bill to confirm the tax allowances and rates which he has already announced in his December 2009 pre-budget report.

"He could accompany the finance bill by a ministerial statement on the same day announcing measures to close artificial tax planning schemes and loopholes and introduce already foreshadowed uncontroversial tax reliefs; the legislation for which can easily be incorporated in the inevitable June 2010 budget after the general election irrespective of the outcome."