Following recommendations made by the Low Pay commission, the government has announced increases in the national minimum wage (NMW), which will take effect from October 2016.

The new rates will be as follows:

– The rate for 21- to 24-year-olds will rise by 3.7% to £6.95 an hour.
– The rate for 18- to 20-year-olds will rise by 4.7% to £5.55 an hour.
– The rate for 16- to 17-year-olds will rise by 3.4% to £4.00 an hour.
– The apprentice rate will rise by 3% to £3.40 an hour.

For further information, see…

The Office of Tax Simplification (OTS) has unveiled a package of recommendations aimed at making the tax system simpler and easier to use for small companies. The report, entitled Small company taxation review contains a mix of long range structural change ideas and simpler short term administrative improvements.

The recommended administrative changes include:

– aligning filing and payment dates, e.g. VAT and PAYE, and annual returns and corporation tax;
– HMRC providing extra support at weekends and evenings when more small company owners deal with their tax affairs;
– stopping companies…

In this analysis we have mainly concentrated on the tax measures that will directly affect individuals, employers and small businesses.

We are committed to ensuring all our clients don’t pay a penny more in tax than is necessary.

If you have any questions or would like one-to-one advice tailored to your needs, please call us on 01792 466 428 or email [email protected].

The new rules governing the taxation of dividends are set to take effect in relation to dividends received after 5 April 2016. The changes include:

– a £5,000 dividend nil rate (also known as the ‘dividend tax allowance’ (DTA)), which will effectively tax at the nil rate, the first £5,000 of taxable dividend income (i.e. after deducting the personal allowance, but treating dividends as the top slice of income, so the personal allowance is used last against dividends). Any dividends above the first £5,000 will be taxed as if…

HMRC have recently published the latest addition to their tax avoidance guidance series, entitled Employee Bonus Schemes: Growth Securities Ownership Plan and other avoidance schemes based on contracts for difference (Spotlight 28). The Spotlight guidance confirms that, in HMRC’s opinion, growth securities ownership plan schemes do not work and any payment made by an employer to an employee on the maturity of the contract for difference should be taxed as employment income and subject to PAYE income tax and National Insurance contributions (NICs).

Broadly, under this type of arrangement,…