Latest Tax Planning

  At the moment, tax relief remains available on pension contributions at an individual’s top rate of tax, making pensions a very tax efficient form of investment. Especially when the new provisions for flexible access of pension funds is taken into account.   But we have yet another Budget approaching, on 22nd November, and it…

  Following last year’s report from HMRC  showing that only a quarter of couples eligible for marriage tax allowance were actually claiming, figures have reduced but still stand at just over a half of couples missing out on the £230 a year they are entitled to. Although the government have tried to simplify the application…

Companies that are developing innovative new products, services or systems have long understood the generosity of the R&D tax relief rules. These give a notional 130% uplift to eligible costs in the company’s corporation tax computation. Such eligible costs include ‘employee costs’, which hitherto has included all ‘reimbursed expenses’. This has always seemed overly generous…

For deaths occurring on or after 6 April 2017, an additional exemption is available where a residence passes to a direct descendant.  At the moment, this amounts to £100,000 but it’s set to increase over the next few years, to a maximum of £175,000 in April 2020.  Commonly known as the Residence Nil Rate Band…

Since April 2015 non-residents selling UK residential property have been required to report the disposals within a Non-resident Capital Gains Tax return within 30 days of the conveyance.  You can view HMRC’s guidance here The timeframe is very tight – some may think unreasonably so, especially since many individuals are unaware of this requirement until…

HMRC’s ongoing scrutiny of private residence relief is in the news again, with another case going before the First Tier Tribunal. Mr & Mrs Ritchie were partially successful in their claim for relief on the sale of their home, which cost them less than £200,000 but which they sold to a developer for £2 million.…

In a bid to give companies more certainty over whether or not their R&D claim will be successful, HMRC introduced an advance assurance process in November 2015. If you pass this new test, HMRC will agree not to enquire into your R&D claims for the first 3 accounting periods of claiming this relief. So is…

Several years ago changes were made to the H M Revenue & Customs policy regarding recovery of output VAT paid over but which hadn’t been received within 6 months of the due date.  Relief for the output VAT can now be obtained much more easily than under the historic process whereby notification was required to…

All the clauses relating to Making Tax Digital (MTD) have been dropped from the Finance Bill, so many people have been asking if this means MTD will no longer go ahead?  We think that this is highly unlikely. The Finance Bill has been reduced from 762 pages to an expected 140 pages in order that…

Buy-to-let Mortgages: Tax relief restrictions soon to commence. The Chartered Institute of Taxation (CIOT) issued a press release today reminding residential property landlords that the first phase of the restriction of tax relief for mortgage interest commences in April. The change means that finance costs (including mortgage interest) will no longer be deductible in full…