In most cases, it doesn’t make sense to simply give away money to save tax during a person’s lifetime. For example, a higher rate taxpayer can claim tax relief to offset their income tax bill on qualifying donations made via the gift aid scheme. However, the cost of the donation will always exceed the relief, so it doesn’t make sense to make additional donations purely from a tax perspective, though they can be useful for helping to avoid things like the high-income child benefit charge.

However, when it comes…

Companies are able to relieve losses for tax purposes, subject to certain restrictions. These restrictions have been relaxed slightly in recent years, e.g. allowing companies to claim trading losses against other profits for future trading years.

However, COVID19 has seen many businesses, including companies, closing down. It is also anticipated that further insolvencies will occur once government assistance, such as furlough, ends, and companies are required to start making repayments on the various loan programmes introduced during the pandemic. As a result, terminal loss relief may prove more important…

HMRC has issued a reminder to working parents that Tax-Free childcare (TFC), the scheme the government phased in between 2017 and 2018, is not just for "traditional" childcare costs, such as regular hours after school during term time. It’s also possible to use the account to pay for things like accredited clubs or sports activities over the summer.

TFC is available for children aged up to 11 generally and takes the form of a top-up scheme – parents pay into the account and HMRC tops it up…

Investors’ Relief (IR) was introduced in April 2016 to complement what was then called entrepreneurs’ relief. IR is intended to encourage outside investment into smaller entrepreneurial companies by those investors who may not wish to get involved with the day-to-day running of the business. Entrepreneurs’ relief, now called Business Asset Disposal Relief (BADR), requires the shareholder to be a director or employee of the issuing company. In contrast, IR prohibits the shareholder from being a "relevant employee " (with some exceptions) during the minimum shareholding period – referred…

Due to COVID19, some businesses are experiencing long delays in obtaining a VAT number after submitting the registration form. HMRC acknowledged the delays earlier this year and have asked businesses to be patient whilst the backlog is worked through. However, a business that is new to VAT may be confused about what they need to do in the interim.

Strictly speaking, if a business is registering due to exceeding the historic twelve-month turnover threshold it must start charging VAT from the first day of the second month…