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New rates for the National Minimum Wage (NMW) and National Living Wage (NLW) (aged 25 and over) apply from 1 April 2018, and employers must ensure that they implement them accordingly. The rates are as follows:

– 25 and over – £7.83 per hour;
– 21 – to 24-year-olds – £7.38 an hour;
– 18 – to 20-year-olds – £5.90 an hour;
– under 18s – £4.20 an hour; and
– Apprentice rate – £3.70 an hour.

Severe penalties may be imposed for failure to comply with NMW/NLW obligations. Broadly, the penalty percentage which…

HMRC have won a significant appeal concerning the application of employment intermediaries legislation to BBC television presenters. In Christa Ackroyd Media Ltd and the Commissioners for Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs, [2018] UKFTT 0069 TC06334, the First Tier Tribunal (FTT) ruled that the legislation (known as the ‘IR35 rules’) applied to the arrangements under which the BBC contracted one of the presenters of the regional news programme Look North.

Christa Ackroyd, whose ‘personal service company’ (Christa Ackroyd Media Ltd (CAM)), was engaged under a seven year contract with the BBC…

The maximum annual investment limit for Individual Savings Accounts (ISAs) will remain at £20,000 for 2018/19 (of which, for eligible investors, £4,000 may be saved in a Lifetime ISA). Although the investment limit is not rising in the new tax year, a couple will still be able to add up to £40,000 to their ISA accounts during the year – a substantial investment limit – and the interest received will be tax-free.

The maximum investment limit for Junior ISAs will rise from 6 April 2018 to £4,260, so there…

Recent government statistics indicate that out of four million eligible couples, around half are still not benefiting from the income tax Marriage Allowance (MA). The allowance was first introduced in April 2015, which means that a backdated claim made in 2017/18 could be worth up to £662. It’s worth checking to make sure claims are made, where appropriate.

In brief, Marriage Allowance is a way for couples to transfer a proportion of their individual Personal Allowance between them in a tax-efficient manner. Where a couple satisfies the following criteria, it…

Draft regulations, together with a draft explanatory memorandum and a draft VAT Notice, covering required changes to the VAT regime under the Making Tax Digital (MTD) project were published for consultation in December 2017. The consultation runs until 9 February 2018, and it is expected that live pilot testing will then begin in spring 2018.

With this in mind, the Association of Taxation Technicians (ATT) has recently been urging software houses and HMRC to identify MTD-compliant software packages urgently to allow businesses to make an informed decision on which…