There was plenty for business in Gordon Brown's pre-budget report, as the chancellor promised early action to remedy concerns over issues such as transport, education and planning.
But the one issue on which he said very little was corporate taxation, where business groups have been lobbying for lower rates, reduced complexity and a less aggressive approach by the tax authorities.
While there was no threat to raise the tax rates in the spring budget, corporate taxation will increase as a result of anti-tax-avoidance measures announced yesterday that will bring in more than £1 billion (€1.47 billion) a year.
"The chancellor put all the measures on transport, skills and so on in the context of global competition, which makes sense," said Richard Lambert, director-general of the CBI employers' organisation. "So it is a pity that he has not addressed the issues of the business tax burden, which is making the UK less attractive to business."
The Federation of Small Businesses said: "After several years of increased complexity, it is very disappointing that there was no signal of a change in direction on the complexity of the tax regime. It has cost small businesses a lot of time and money over recent times to comply with tax form requirements or hire external expertise."
Much of what Mr Brown said on business stemmed from the sheaf of reports commissioned from figures such as Lord Leitch, Sir Rod Eddington and Kate Barker that have been dribbled out over the past two weeks. Two more were issued yesterday: the Gowers report on intellectual property and the Cooksey report on health research.
In addition to endorsing the broad conclusions of the reports, the chancellor made some specific commitments. He announced that Sir Digby Jones, the former CBI director-general, would become "skills envoy" to build a consensus around the proposals in the Leitch report.
He said the government would tighten penalties for copying and piracy and would introduce fast-track protection for small companies that want to safeguard their trademarks - recommendations in the Gowers report.
The Institute of Directors welcomed the chancellor's pledges but cautioned that fine words needed to be translated into action. "There needs to be real follow-through," said Miles Templeman, director-general.
Mr Brown also confirmed he would double air passenger duty from February 1st and raise fuel duty in line with inflation from today.
The bad news for business was hidden in the table setting out the impact of pre-budget report measures, where the latest package of anti-avoidance measures would raise the tax take by £655 million a year by 2008-09.
