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Business rates burden eases for retailers and hospitality firms
Thousands of retail, hospitality and leisure firms in England will receive a short-term business rates reprieve in 2022/23, following Autumn Budget 2021. Chancellor Rishi Sunak announced a temporary 50% cut in their business rates, up to a maximum of £110,000 per business. Up to 400,000 businesses in these sectors – including pubs, music venues, cinemas,…
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Hospitality and tourism VAT rate increases to 12.5%
VAT for pubs, restaurants, holiday accommodation and entry to certain attractions increased from 5% to 12.5% last month, following the end of a tax break. A temporary cut first introduced on 8 July 2020 saw the standard rate of VAT for struggling businesses in the hospitality and tourism sectors fall from 20% to 5%. That…
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Salary-sacrifice arrangements could help employees negate the National Insurance contributions (NICs) rise during 2022/23.
NICs will rise by 1.25% for employees, employers and the self-employed from April 2022 to fund the Government’s new health and social care levy. In some scenarios, employees and employers can get around this by striking a salary sacrifice deal to reduce an employee’s gross pay in return for certain non-cash benefits, such as pension…
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Residence & domicile after Brexit
How your status affects the amount of tax you pay. For most UK citizens, the question of what income and gains should be included on their tax return is easily answered because they are both UK domiciled and UK tax resident. Anyone domiciled and resident in the UK will need to report their worldwide income…
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Those self-employed grants are taxable
Three grants worth up to £21,570 are taxable. A chunk of time has passed since the self-employed income support scheme (SEISS) was launched in May 2020, following the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. The first taxable grant, worth up to £7,500 in total, was paid out in August 2020. That was followed by a second…
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Tax rates rise 2022/23
National Insurance and dividends tax rates to rise 1.25% in 2022/23 National Insurance contributions (NICs) and the three dividend tax rates will all increase 1.25% from April 2022 to pay for the social care system in England. This social care package will be funded through a new UK-wide health and social care levy, which is…
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Tax and electric cars
The rise of electric vehicles could create £30bn tax hole The Government is being urged to introduce a new road-pricing system, because the increasing popularity of electric vehicles risks leaving a £30 billion hole in public finances each year. Research submitted by the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change called for a new system, with…
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New trust registration service
Millions of trustees need to register details of their trusts before next autumn, following the launch of a new trust registration service. The service was originally announced in draft form in 2017, at a time when it would only have applied to taxable-relevant trusts. Since then it has been expanded to include all UK-resident express…
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Stamp duty is back
The stamp duty land tax holiday in England and Northern Ireland has come to an end, more than 14 months after it first came into effect. The tax break saw most buyers who purchased residential homes for £500,000 or less pay no stamp duty land tax until 30 June 2021, although landlords still had to…
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Accounting for charities & non-profits
How the third sector is assessed for tax. Anyone who’s involved in operating a charity knows how it differs from running a business, both in terms of motives and objectives. HMRC treats non-profit organisations and charities very differently to businesses, offering some unique tax breaks in the process. If a charity is recognised by the…
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Unincorporated businesses – watch out…
What might this mean for your business? Unincorporated businesses could be about to see significant changes to the ways in which they are taxed, following the launch of a Government consultation. The Government plans to reform the basis period rules in a bid to simplify how unincorporated businesses, such as sole traders and business partnerships,…
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Capital gains tax receipts climb 3% to record-high
HMRC collected a record of £9.9 billion from capital gains tax receipts in 2019/20, according to official statistics published last month. The tax authority said this was 3% up on the previous tax year’s receipts, but the number of taxpayers paying tax on their gains fell 6% to around 265,000. Most of the liabilities collected…
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1 in 5 UK employers consider making redundancies
A minority of UK employers could be about to cut jobs, due to the withdrawal of the furlough scheme and rising costs. The scheme, which has protected around 11.6 million jobs since the start of the pandemic, will close on 30 September 2021. The Government currently pays 60% of a furloughed worker’s wages and employers…
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National Insurance contributions rates ‘poised to increase’
The Government could be set to raise National Insurance contributions (NICs) by 1% for both employers and employees, a report has claimed. The Times claimed senior ministers have agreed to increase rates to raise an extra £10 billion a year for the National Insurance Fund. This would initially be used to reduce NHS waiting lists,…
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Deadline approaches for fifth and final self-employed grant
The self-employed have until the end of the month to apply for the final grant available via the self-employed income support scheme (SEISS). Everyone who is eligible for the last SEISS grant should have received a personal start date from HMRC in recent months. These gave self-employed taxpayers a date from which they can apply…
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Thinking of starting a new business after COVID-19.
The pandemic has proven a huge challenge for businesses, with 396,155 UK firms closing in 2020 according to the Office for National Statistics. The FSB expects that an additional 250,000 small businesses could fold by the end of 2021. Yet, despite the challenges, 407,510 new businesses were formed during 2020. Businesses that were able to move…
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IHT planning – The basics
Increasing house prices raise inheritance tax risk. Soaring house prices coupled with certain thresholds being frozen in the most recent Budget have the potential to drag more estates into the inheritance tax net over the coming years. Back in March 2021, Chancellor Rishi Sunak confirmed the main inheritance tax thresholds will remain frozen at their…
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Pensions tax traps catch out thousands more savers
The number of savers who breached the annual allowance and the lifetime allowance increased in 2018/19, according to government statistics. Figures from HMRC show 34,220 people reported saving more in their pension pots than the £40,000 annual allowance in 2018/19, triggering total tax charges worth £817 million. The amount of people who exceeded their annual…
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Treasury seeks feedback on business rates revaluations
Business rates revaluations in England could take place every three years, following the launch of a recent consultation. The latest consultation forms part of a comprehensive review into business rates in England, with a report due to be published in the autumn. Business rates are similar to council tax for business properties in England. They…
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Employer costs increase as furlough scheme winds down
Employer contributions towards furloughed workers’ wages have increased again, as the furlough scheme prepares to close for good on 30 September 2021. Officially introduced at the start of the pandemic in March 2020, the scheme has supported around 11.6 million jobs in the UK to date at a cost of £66 billion. For most of…
