September 2023 – A family view

In the UK, everyone is taxed as an individual, but social security benefits, including tax credits and Universal Credit, are awarded on the basis of the family’s total income. Child Benefit is clawed back based on the income of the higher earner in a couple, ...

September 2023 – Where there’s a Will…

When you die, your executors or relatives need to sort out your affairs. This stressful task can be made easier if you leave a clear and up-to-date Will that has been drafted with tax in mind. Your executors may need to pay inheritance tax (IHT) ...

September 2023 – Crossing the threshold

When your total income reaches certain levels, it tips any extra income into a higher tax band. This can also mean you lose part or all of your personal savings allowance (PSA), personal allowance (PA) or pensions annual allowance. Although the rates of income tax ...

September 2023 – Review your mix of income

All interest you receive is taxable, unless it is from an ISA, but banks and building societies don’t deduct tax from interest paid to individuals. For most taxpayers the rate of tax payable on that interest is 0%, so no tax is in fact due ...

August 2023 – Change in the law for NIC relief on car allowance

If employers pay less than the Approved Mileage Allowance Payments and pay a car allowance​, their employees ​(and the employer) are entitled to national insurance relief on the allowance following a 12-year-long campaign.  Where an employer pays less than the Approved Mileage Allowance Payments (AMAP), the employee ...

August 2023 – Settle tax on behalf of your employee

There are various tax exemptions you can use to provide an employee with a one-off tax-free reward, such as certain ‘trivial’ benefits or long-service awards. If the value of the reward exceeds the tax-free amount permitted, you can bear the tax and NICs (which the ...

August 2023 – Reporting benefits and expenses

HMRC has made it clear that employers must submit their reports of benefits and expenses provided to employees (P11D forms) in electronic form this year. All paper P11Ds will be rejected, as will any paper amendments to P11Ds for earlier years. There are now only ...

August 2023 – Payroll hygiene

The HMRC computer can be confused by incorrect information in PAYE returns, which may then result in a demand for more tax than you have deducted from your employees. This may happen when the HMRC computer records a duplicate employment for an employee, without ceasing ...

August 2023 – VAT on land and buildings

When you are acquiring a commercial building, you need to know whether the purchase price will include VAT. Older non-residential buildings will normally be exempt from VAT, but not if the owner has opted to apply VAT (“opted to tax”) at some point. Once this ...

July 2023 – Pension contribution limits relaxed

The annual allowance (AA) caps the amount of tax-relievable pension inputs that can be made to a registered pension scheme. For money purchase (defined contribution) schemes (which include all personal pensions), the inputs are the total amounts contributed by you and your employer. In a ...

July 2023 – HMRC doesn’t want your call

HMRC is nudging taxpayers to find answers to their questions on gov.uk rather than calling their helplines. It has already closed the VAT registration helpline, as the vast majority of calls to that line were chasing VAT registration applications, which now take at least 40 ...

July 2023 – Paying your PAYE

To ensure that your PAYE payments get to the right place within HMRC’s systems, you must quote the correct reference when making the payment. This is made up of your 13-character PAYE reference number (HMRC call this your Accounts Office reference), plus 4 digits to ...