Latest Business Tax

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…

HMRC have for some time been keen for taxpayers to make their tax payments electronically.  They have recently updated their guidance to show that from 15 December 2017 it will no longer be possible for taxpayers to pay self-assessment tax, or in fact any other type of tax, directly at the Post Office.   This…

  HMRC have a Let Property Campaign to try to encourage landlords who have not previously declared their taxable income and gains to come forward as soon as possible, in order to bring their tax affairs up to date. The let property campaign is aimed at individual landlords with residential property in the UK or…

  HMRC’s latest Agent Update announces their plan to withdraw paper copies of the SA302 (for mortgage application purposes) for taxpayers whose self-assessment tax returns are submitted by an agent.  This will take effect from 4 September 2017. To date we have been calling HMRC in order to obtain a paper copy of a client’s…

  A number of our clients have been on the receiving end of bogus calls/emails purporting to be from HMRC – either threatening legal action for unpaid taxes or offering refunds. Our experience is that these can be very well drafted and the telephone scams in particular have fooled a couple of our clients, one…

  HMRC have issued an update of their guidance on how to recognise genuine HMRC contact be it via email or text. HMRC also provide advice on what to do if you have received a phishing/bogus email related to HMRC, or you are not sure if it is genuine, you can read about how to…

The Office for Tax Simplification has published their recommendations on simplifying the corporation tax computation. This report sets out some significant steps towards creating a 21st-century corporation tax system in the UK, responding to calls from businesses of all sizes to make the calculation of corporation tax simpler, with fewer changes and more time to…

Following the announcement to cut tax relief for landlords from April 2017, setting up a limited company to purchase investment properties has been suggested as one way to ease the burden of tax. Whilst the legal transaction is essentially the same whether an individual or a company is purchasing the buy- to- let properties, there…

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…

For some clients making tax digital is now start to loom with them needing to commence quarterly returns in less than twelve months. With this in mind, they may be looking to set up new software programmes in preparation. But where do you start with the headings to use in your accounts? HMRC have stated…