Here is a summary of the 2017 budget and its effect on the areas of personal taxation, businesses and the economy in general. Personal Taxation The tax rate for class 4 national insurance contributions for the self-employed to increase from 9% to 10% in April 2018 and 11% in April 2019. This increase applying to earnings […]
The flat rate scheme is used by many small to medium sized businesses to simplify their VAT reporting. Many of those businesses enjoys a cash advantage from using this scheme. However, this advantage is due to be cut back significantly from 1 April 2017. The FRS will continue but many businesses will not find it […]
The government is on its way enforcing all businesses whether large or small to maintain their bookkeeping records electronically. Eventhough you can get a good idea of the government’s intentions by reading the article “Making Tax Digital” it doesn’t give any concrete information to say how businesses should plan for this. While it’s just an […]
If you employ staff who are on the move on a regular basis, you could reimburse them the cost of their meals while they’re out and about. But you have another option, where you could pay them a tax and NI-free allowance in exchange for them taking a little less in pay. This will be […]
The new rules on the annual investment allowance apply differently to different businesses. The Chancellor’s announcement that the AIA, which allows a 100% tax deduction for expenditure on equipment for the accounting period of purchase, was to be raised to £250,000 from 01 January 2013. But the transition from the previous £25,000 limit always looked […]
There had been many changes recently to the rules affecting income tax and VAT where you pay for fuel. This is mainly related to fuel used by your employees for private journeys. What are these changes and how might they affect your business? If it is a practice of your business to provide directors or […]
HMRC has suspended the programme of business record checks. But the bad news is there will be more targeted checks on specific businesses. Early last year HMRC announced that a special task force would be visiting businesses at random to check the standard of their record keeping. Originally, HMRC intended to make 50,000 visits; this […]
Have you ever thought of claiming a tax deduction for your birthday gift? According to the laws of HMRC, you can freely do so provided that they are used for business purpose. If you spend money on your business, you can expect set off the cost against your tax bill. But as with all other […]
Finally HMRC has come to grips with those who sell certain products or used items on websites such as Gumtree and eBay. So who should be worried about these latest attempts of HMRC to earn some more money? Targeting online traders for tax Over the last few months HMRC has been busy trying to identify […]
It’s hardly an unusual situation for a director to incur expenses on behalf of their company and for it to make a reimbursement. The outcome of this arrangement is usually that the company gets a deduction for the cost while for the director the transactions are tax neutral. But if the director takes for example […]