All news by: Peter Richardson

Here are some important tax dates for your diary. 

Important dates for your tax diary below. 

On the face of it, this sounds implausible. How can you change your will if you have died?

In reality, as long as any beneficiaries left worse off after any change, agree, you can change a person’s will after their death.

A reminder that HMRC may consider extended options for settling your outstanding tax bill. The key is to contact HMRC, explain why you can’t pay on time, and discuss how you can settle any outstanding liabilities.

It is a commonly held point of view that when you sell your home you won’t pay any tax, and in particular, that you won’t pay any Capital Gains Tax on the difference between the purchase and sales prices.

A reminder that if your business makes a loan to your employees or their relatives this can create tax problems for both employees and employers.

And please don’t forget that the term “employee” includes directors, and also that loans to family members may be caught. 
 

On Friday 1st February, HMRC announced that over 93% of taxpayers filed their self-assessment tax returns on time and before the 31st January deadline.

On Friday 1st February, HMRC announced that over 93% of taxpayers filed their self-assessment tax returns on time and before the 31st January deadline.

You can give away £3,000 worth of gifts each tax year (6 April to 5 April) without them being added to the value of your estate. This is known as your ‘annual exemption’.

Options for adopting 99% of tax planning opportunities for 2018-19 ends on 5 April 2019, just a couple of months away.

This applies equally to individuals and all businesses with an accounting year end close to, but prior to 5 April 2019.
 

Named the additional rate, the highest rate of Income Tax is 45%, and some might say 45% is high enough.

However, if the rate of tax is measured as the relationship between income and tax plus tax related penalties paid, there are times when this 45% can rise, to as much as 90%.

Marriage Allowance lets you transfer £1,190 of your Personal Allowance to your husband, wife or civil partner - if they earn more than you.
This reduces their tax by up to £238 in the tax year. To benefit from this arrangement, you (as the lower earner) must have an income below your Personal Allowance - this is £11,850 for the current tax year.

A government think-tank, the Office for Tax Simplification (OTS), was briefed to consider a non-tax issue, a restricted form of limited liability for sole traders.

Notwithstanding any of the comments that follow, an individual is allowed to make tax-free capital gains of £11,700 during 2018-19.

Many director shareholders take a minimum salary and any balance of remuneration as dividends. This tends to reduce National Insurance Contributions (NIC), and in some cases income tax.
 

In a recent press release, HMRC urged underpaid workers to complain as figures show that the number of workers getting the money they're owed by employers has doubled after interventions by HMRC.

Payments on account required from April 2020. 

Since 14 February 2018, tax-free childcare has become available to all remaining eligible families: parents whose youngest child is under 12. The new scheme aims to help working parents with the cost of childcare. 

According to government, it is quick and easy to apply, and parents could save thousands of pounds each year. For every £8 parents pay into their childcare account, the government will add an extra £2, up to £2,000 per child per year. HMRC has been gradually rolling out tax-free childcare since April 2017. 

From April 2018, the £5,000 tax-free dividend allowance is reducing from £5,000 to £2,000.

On 25 May 2018, all organisations within the UK and around the globe will be required to abide by the new incoming EU General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR).

The countdown has begun for this years’ online tax return, a crucial time for around 11 million taxpayers who are self employed or  receive other income that requires the submission of a tax return, which is normally rental income, or interest and dividend income that is liable to income tax.  Because of changes made to the taxation of dividends with effect from 6 April 2017, any one who receives more than £5,000 of dividends in a year is likely to have an income tax liability, even if they are only basic rate taxpayers.  In the past only higher rate taxpayers have had to pay any tax on their dividend income.

If you file your 2016-17 self-assessment tax return on or before 30 December 2017, you can elect to spread the repayment of any underpayment of tax for 2016-17 to the tax year 2018-19. This is done by amending your tax code for 2018-19 such that any arrears are repaid by increasing your tax payments each pay period.

When cyber-attacks and data breaches hit the news, they invariably involve the largest businesses or national institutions like the NHS.  But this doesn’t mean small businesses are not under threat too.  Every business, regardless of size or industry sector, is at risk.

If you use standard VAT accounting – pay VAT on sales when invoiced and claim back VAT on purchases when invoiced – you may have availed yourself of the six months claim for bad debt relief on unpaid invoices

A scheme using Employee Benefit Trusts (EBTs) as a means of remunerating directors and staff has been defeated by HMRC in a recent Supreme Court case.

There is a government department, the Office for Tax Simplification (OTS), that has been charged with investigating ways that the UK’s tax rules can be changed to make them easier to understand and easier to use.

A recent VAT Tribunal had to decide whether two hairdressing businesses should be treated as a single business for the purposes of VAT registration.
 

If you leave your entire estate to charities, will you be turning in your grave if disinherited relatives mount a challenge to break your last will and testament, and succeed?

 

When you reach the State Retirement Age (SRA) you stop paying Class 1 NIC contributions if you are employed, and Class 2 contributions if you are self-employed.

You will still have to pay Class 4 NIC, the most significant self-employed NIC charge, for the entire tax year during which you achieve the SRA. The next year you will be exempt.