Many things that were floated or threatened didn't happen in the Budget

So now we know - Gordon Brown really does stand for change and modernisation in the tax system. Not content with moving the Budget day to a Wednesday, he has also dispensed with the venerable Budget Box, first used by Gladstone. While Gladstone managed to get a four-hour-plus speech into the old box, the new Chancellor found a slightly bigger box more appropriate to the A4 pages of his one-hour speech. So what are the messages from the Budget?

Clearly what Mr Brown will want us to remember is the windfall tax and how it is being spent. But the blocking of the ACT tax credit for pension funds when they receive dividends is really a more far-reaching measure and will touch many people, albeit indirectly.

After all, most of us contribute to a pensions scheme or are drawing on one. Now the fund that we relate to has lower income. That may lead to demand for higher contributions: if it is a company scheme, then at least the company has a lower corporation tax rate to soften the blow. But for those with personal pensions, there will be a more direct impact.

This blocking of the tax credit repayment has wider ramifications as well, or it will do. The credit is available to individuals to set against their tax bills, or generate a repayment if they do not have a bill to pay, and charities can also reclaim the tax credit in cash. At the moment, none of these (PEPs included) are affected.

But in April 1999, things will change. The tax credit reduces to one- ninth of the cash dividend, instead of the current one-quarter. Individual recipients won't notice a difference, as they will only be asked for the same amount of cash tax as now (which is nil if they are other than a higher-rate taxpayer, of course).

Those who do not pay tax - children or those on low incomes for example - will get a lower repayment. PEPs and charities will also get less, though the charities' reduction is being phased in over five years. Overseas investors, who in many cases get an ACT rebate, will lose most, if not all, of their entitlement.

Perhaps what these 1999 amendments are meant to do is to push us towards the planned Individual Saving Accounts (ISAs). These sound as if they will be able to invest in anything and will be welcomed. But we will have to wait until next year for details. While there wasn't the cap on PEP investment that many had expected, there is something of a signal that PEPs may be on the wane, with the ISA offering better tax recovery and thus better returns.

Tax-advantaged investments are always vulnerable to changes of mind by successive chancellors. Venture Capital Trusts and Enterprise Investment Scheme companies offer 20 per cent income tax relief for investments: these were feared to be on Mr Brown's hit list.

But they survived, though with a tweaking to target them more closely to risk-taking. We can expect to see fewer asset-backed, guaranteed-return type of schemes in the future: you really will have to put your money at risk to help a new or expanding business rather than into a safe investment if you want the relief.

Here we get on to what I see as one of the themes of the Budget that I will remember: the Dog That Didn't Bark in the Night (see the Sherlock Holmes story Silver Blaze if you've never come across that analogy before). There were many things floated, threatened or even expected that didn't happen - or happened less painfully than anticipated. Sure, Miras was cut, but we could look at it as a 10 per cent relief saved rather than five per cent lost. We didn't see any changes to inheritance tax - all the reliefs are still there. Capital gains reinvestment and retirement reliefs survive intact. Those who are resident here, but not domiciled, and those who are trying to leave to avoid a tax bill, can breathe easily again. Trusts can soldier on. No changes to National Insurance, nor - medical cover for the elderly and Miras apart - to income tax. In fact, an awful lot of the things that I have been writing about in this series of columns were unaffected.

Many of the things that escaped attention this time could well turn up next spring, which is when we are assured the next Budget will be - presumably back to the traditional March timing. Perhaps there is a streak of soft traditionalism in this new Iron Chancellor that we see before us. We'll have to wait and see. For part of this time I'll be taking a break from this column and, among other things, moving house. I, for one, was fortunate enough to get things in motion before the increased stamp duty hit, even if a certain ex-resident of Islington didn't.

John Whiting is a tax partner at Price Waterhouse