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Cleaning up your sales till

Electronic sales suppression (ESS) is the term for when a sales till is programmed to hide or reduce the value of individual sales.

For example, the electronic point of sale (EPOS) software installed on the till may deliberately exclude certain items from the sale records. Alternatively, the EPOS software may be set to operate in a training mode, allowing the sale to be rung up, but excluding it from the daily takings.

In December 2022 HMRC raided 90 businesses that were involved…

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More time to pay missing National Insurance Contributions

In March we reminded you to check whether yournational insurance contribution (NIC) record contains any gaps, and how this could affect entitlement to the state retirement pension. The deadline for paying voluntary Class 3 NIC to fill any NIC deficiencies in tax years back to 2006/07 had been set at 5 April 2023.

However, to make the payment of NIC online taxpayers need to call HMRC, and their phone lines have been overloaded with the large numbers of people wanting to pay the class 3…

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Plugging NIC gaps

Many people don‘t realise that they have significant gaps in their National Insurance Contribution (NIC) record, and as a result they won‘t be entitled to the full state retirement pension. This can come as a shock when you start to receive your state pension, but by that time it may be too late to fill the gaps in your NIC record.

A taxpayer needs 35 complete NIC years (as payments or national insurance credits) in order to receive the maximum state retirement pension,…

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Planning your profit extraction

In his Autumn statement in November 2022 Chancellor Hunt announced cuts to the dividend allowance and the additional tax rate threshold, where individuals start to pay tax at 45%. You need to take these changes into account when planning how and when to extract profits from your company.

Many family companies spread the shareholding over various family members to take advantage of the dividend allowance which allows an individual to receive up to £2,000 of dividends tax free in a tax year.

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HMRC homes in on Airbnb landlords

Online platforms such as Airbnb are now obliged to provide HMRC with data about the payments it makes to individuals who let rooms on a short-term basis. HMRC is matching that data to tax returns and writing to taxpayers who have apparently not declared their rental income correctly.

If you receive such a letter don’t be alarmed by the aggressive tone, as HMRC is asserting that you owe tax, but that may not be the case.

If you…

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Relief for mortgage interest on let properties

As an individual landlord you can’t deduct finance costs, including interest, from your residential property rents for tax purposes. Instead, you get tax relief for those costs as a basic rate tax credit calculated as 20% of the lower of:

– finance costs for the year plus any unused finance charges brought forward;
– your property income profits with no deduction for finance costs,
– or your adjusted total income for the year that exceeds your Personal Allowance.

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HMRC is chasing down the gig-economy

HMRC is writing to online sellers, gig economy workers, and influencers, asking them for unpaid taxes.

There are two versions of the HMRC letter.

– This letter is directed to those who sell goods, or their own services, through an online marketplace. This will include people who sell items on eBay or Etsy, as well as taxi drivers who find their customers through apps such as Uber.

– This letter is addressed to people who have created…

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Reporting crypto profits and losses

HMRC defines crypto assets as: “cryptographically secured digital representations of value or contractual rights that can be transferred, stored, and traded electronically”. The various ‘tokens’ that have been created including Bitcoin, Litecoin, and Ether are all virtual, they exist only on computer servers.

The tax law hasn’t been written to cope with crypto assets, but that doesn’t mean the profits made on investing in crypto are tax-free. HMRC expects most individuals who buy and sell crypto assets to be treated as investors rather than traders,…

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How to challenge a K-code

The PAYE system should deduct approximately the right amount of tax from your salary so that you do not have further tax to pay on that income. However, it assumes that your income remains steady from year to year. This may not be the case.

If you have a PAYE code including the letter K, this means your personal allowance has been reduced to zero and a notional amount of income has been added to your salary to be taxed. The imposition of a K…

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