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Tax Tips

Please find below all the articles that have been categorised as 'Tax Tips'.

Staff Clothes

If you provide clothes for your staff to wear at work you need to be aware of the tax and VAT implications which may vary according to the items provided.

Where the items provided constitute a uniform or protective clothing which is needed to perform the job,the cost is tax deductible for the business and the VAT can be reclaimed. There is no taxable benefit in kind for the employee.
If the clothes are not considered to be a “uniform” and can’t qualify as protective clothing, the tax treatment depends…

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EIS Assurance

The Enterprise Investment Scheme (EIS) provides some very attractive tax incentives for investors who subscribe for shares in small companies. If you are thinking of attracting investors using the EIS you should first get an advance assurance from HMRC that your company will qualify.

However, HMRC has recently changed the conditions under which it will give that advanced assurance. It will no longer grant assurance for an EIS application if the company is:

– over 7 years from its first sale and has not received funding under the EIS, or…

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Non-resident Capital Gains Tax

If you are involved with sales of UK residential property where the buyer or seller is tax-resident outside of the UK, you need to be aware of a new tax that came into effect on 6 April 2015: non-resident CGT (NR CGT).

The NR CGT charge is applied at different rates according to whether the seller is a non-resident closely-held company, fund, individual, personal representative or trustee. It applies to gains made in the period from 6 April 2015 to the disposal date of the property, so a small…

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Make the Best of Allowances

As the sole owner/director of your company you face a dilemma over how to extract income from that company. If you pay yourself a salary of more than £8,060 per year you will have to pay class 1 NIC at the rate of 12% on the excess pay above that threshold up to £42,385 pa. However, income tax is not due until your salary tops £10,600 (the value of your personal allowance for 2015/16).

One solution is to take a salary of up to £8,060 and any further income…

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Auto-enrolment exemptions

Have you received a letter from The Pension Regulator (TPR) telling you to “ACT NOW” to prepare for auto-enrolment? The letter gives you just a few weeks to nominate a contact to receive communications about auto-enrolment, with the threat of fines or prosecution if you don’t take action.

The “staging date” for your business will be stated in the letter. This is the date by which you must have a pension scheme ready for your employees to join, if you do indeed need one.

A large number of small companies…

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ATED Reporting

The annual tax on enveloped dwellings (ATED) now applies to residential properties worth over £1m that are owned by a company, or a partnership with one or more corporate members, or in some cases a unit trust.

The ATED charge starts at £7,000 per year for properties worth over £1m but no more than £2m, and increases in steps to £218,200 per year for properties worth over £20m. This tax is normally payable to HMRC by 30 April within the year that charge applies to, which starts on 1…

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Cancelling VAT or VAT-MOSS Registration

If you registered for UK VAT in order to operate VAT-MOSS for your overseas sales of digital services to non-business customers, you may now find that the administration for such sales is just not worth the hassle. If so you may want to deregister for both UK-VAT and VAT-MOSS, and restrict your sales to UK-based consumers, or businesses located anywhere outside the EU.

The deregistration process for VAT-MOSS must be done online and it will take effect from the end of the calendar quarter in which notice to deregister…

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Forms P11D and P9D

The forms P11D and P9D need to be submitted to HMRC by 6 July 2015 where expenses or benefits were provided to your employees in 2014/15, which are not covered by a dispensation, or are not otherwise exempt from tax. If the forms are not submitted on time, HMRC will issue penalties.

But how does HMRC know whether a P11D or P9D is due to be filed? In pre-RTI years when you completed the end of year form P35 you had to say whether a P11D was due. Those…

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What Tax Rate do you Pay?

A question we are often asked is, how can I reduce my tax bill?

A simple question on the face of it, but how simple is the UK tax system?

An income taxpayer might reasonably assume that there are only three rates of tax within the UK, basic rate tax at 20%, higher rate tax at 40% and the additional rate at 45%, and they would technically be correct.  However the reality of the UK tax system is that your personal circumstances…

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Marriage allowance

If you are married or in a civil partnership, and born on or after 6 April 1935 you can now apply for the new marriage allowance. This is not an extra amount of tax free allowance, but a transfer of £1,060 of unused personal allowance from one spouse or civil partner to the other. It will save the couple tax of £212 for 2015/16.

The marriage allowance can only be claimed where one person has unused personal allowance and the other partner/spouse is taxed at no more than 20%….

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