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Are we leaving the EU?
What can your firm do before 29 March 2019? As the clock continues to tick down to the 29 March 2019, when the UK is scheduled to officially leave the EU at 11pm, there is still much uncertainty around what Brexit will mean for UK business. What is certain is that it will bring change…
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The politics of tax breaks
How did we end up with such a complex system of tax reliefs? If there’s one thing accountants love, it’s identifying obscure tax reliefs to which you may be entitled and using them to reduce your tax bills. Tax reliefs, or tax breaks as they are sometimes called, aren’t without controversy, however. There are too…
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Government launches service to prepare firms for EU exit
The Government has launched a new website service to help businesses prepare for the UK’s exit from the EU later this month. ‘Prepare your business for leaving the EU’ is an online tool that provides information on specific rules and regulations, and aims to inform business owners of what is changing in their sector. The…
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Making Tax Digital for VAT: one month to go
The first batch of VAT-registered businesses have less than a month to go until they enter into the Government’s Making Tax Digital (MTD) regime. All VAT-registered businesses turning over more than £85,000 will be mandated into MTD by 1 October 2019, with the majority of firms adopting the scheme by 1 June 2019. Firms with…
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Minimum contributions rise to 3% for employers in April
Most employers in the UK will see minimum contributions towards their workers’ occupational pension schemes rise from 2% to 3% next month. Businesses are legally obliged to automatically enrol all staff aged between 22 and state pension age, and earning more than £10,000 a year, into a workplace pension. The first workers were automatically enrolled…
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HMRC error hits early-paying self-assessment taxpayers
HMRC admitted an error which saw hundreds of early-paying taxpayers wrongly issued with late-payment notices before the deadline for self-assessment tax returns. The deadline for 2017/18 self-assessment submissions and any tax owed came and went at midnight on 31 January 2019, with £100 penalties in place for not filing on time.
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Year-End Tax Guide 2018-19
Download our Year-End Tax Guide 2018-19
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The risks of a tax investigation
Will HMRC come knocking on your door? It’s a fact – humans are bad at assessing risk. We’re terrified of things that rarely happen (plane crashes, power station meltdowns) but relatively blasé about things that are statistically more likely to harm us, such as unwashed lettuce. The likelihood of HMRC swooping to investigate your business’s…
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Changes to probate in 2019
Controversial fee increase set to take place from April. From April 2019, some estates in England and Wales could be required to pay almost £6,000 for a service that currently costs less than 4% of that amount. This is because of a proposed change to the fees families must pay to administer the estate of…
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Think tank proposes tax changes to save £7bn
A think tank suggests that tightening up some existing wealth taxes and subsidies could help the Government save almost £7 billion a year by 2022/23. Scrapping the lifetime and help-to-buy ISAs, reforming or replacing council tax, and clamping down on inheritance tax loopholes are among the suggestions made by the Resolution Foundation. Other recommendations include…
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Partners hit by avoidable ISA tax charge
An unnecessary tax charge on inherited ISAs could be resulting in thousands of bereaved partners missing out on a tax break, according to research. Introduced in 2015, the additional permitted subscription is available to the spouse or civil partner of an ISA holder who has died. The subscription provides an extra ISA allowance to the…
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Dual-registration service passes 200,000 milestone
More than 200,000 startup owners have benefitted from a collaborative service that enables businesses to register for tax at the same time as registering their company. The streamlined company registration service, which was announced by HMRC and Companies House in 2015, was launched to reduce the burden on business owners and their agents. When a…
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Auto-enrolment fines rise 146%
Fines issued to employers that fail to comply with their auto-enrolment responsibilities have more than doubled over the last two years, a report from the Pensions Regulator shows. In 2017/18, there were 36,137 fines issued to employers for not complying with the requirements of auto-enrolment – up from 14,707 such penalties in 2016/17. The Pensions…
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Outsourcing payroll – is this a good idea?
Does it make sense for your business? Around 1.4 million businesses in the UK employed members of staff in 2018, and all of them shared one thing in common: the legal requirement to run payroll. This task consumes a large amount of time each month, with multiple processes to complete in order to comply with…
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National Insurance – where are we headed?
National insurance contributions (NICs) are set aside to pay the state pension and other benefits, but due to the UK’s ageing population the National Insurance Fund is under increasing strain, with the state pension taking up more than 90% of its annual outlay in 2018. A review by the Government Actuary’s Department (GAD) predicted the…
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Delay Making Tax Digital says tax bodies and House of Lords
Leading tax bodies have joined the House of Lords in calls to delay the introduction of Making Tax Digital (MTD) for all taxes, less than three months before it’s due to come into force for VAT. MTD is finally due to commence on 1 April 2019 for VAT-registered businesses with an annual taxable turnover of…
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Digital system for IHT – good or bad?
The Office for Tax Simplification (OTS) has urged the Government to implement a digital system for inheritance tax, following complaints the current form-filling system is too complex. On average, there are around 570,000 deaths in the UK every year, although inheritance tax is due on less than 5% of estates. Although the majority of estates…
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R&D investment grows
Businesses in the UK spent £23.7 billion on research and development (R&D) in 2017, according to the latest data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS). The ONS found that year-on-year expenditure on R&D increased by £1.1bn – or 4.9% – compared to statistics for 2016. Firms in the pharmaceutical sector continued to have the…
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The apprenticeship levy – your understanding so far
Businesses are finally beginning to understand the apprenticeship levy, after previously voicing serious concerns over its complexity and lack of flexibility. The apprenticeship levy took effect on 6 April 2017 and means businesses with an annual pay bill of more than £3 million must pay the levy towards apprenticeship funding. It is charged at 0.5%…
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Filing self-assessment 2017/18 – what you need to know
As the year draws to a close, the thought of your tax return is there, at the back of your mind. But with so much time before the deadline, you decide not to worry about it for now. Then the weeks start to fly by, Christmas comes and goes, and soon you’re planning for…
