Latest blogs for Specialisms

What is a scheme pays election? Scheme pays is a facility that allows you to ask NHS pensions to pay some or all your annual allowance excess charge. However, by making a scheme pays election you suffer a permanent reduction in the pension benefits that you will receive in retirement. If I make a scheme…

From Monday 3 October 2022, the UK government has changed the ‘small’ company threshold, which is expected to remove 40,000 businesses from certain reporting regulations. Since January 2016, a company qualifies as ‘small’ in the year that it does not exceed two or more of the following: Annual turnover:                                   £10.2m Gross Assets:       …

HMRC will raise interest rates on tax debt from 11 October following the 0.5% increase in the base rate.   This means that the late payment interest rate will increase to 4.75% from 11 October 2022. The rate last increased to 4.25% on 23 August. This is the highest rate since the height of the financial crisis…

Adding to the plethora of red tape, there is now a requirement for overseas entities (ie a legal entity, such as a company or other organisation, that has legal personality and is governed by the law of a country or territory outside the UK) who own or lease property or land in the United Kingdom…

Last month, the Financial Times released an article detailing the huge numbers of buy-to-let investors and second homeowners failing to meet the 60-day Capital Gains Tax reporting and payment deadline, which is as high as 20%.   The article can be found here: One-fifth of property sellers miss CGT payment deadline | Financial Times  …

>>> Stop Press <<< The Government reversed this decision on Friday 14 October 2022.   Todays ‘fiscal event’, announced by the Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng, promises the 2017 and 2021 off-payroll working reforms of IR35 will be scrapped, to simplify the tax system.   Those laws had required the end client, and not the contractor, to…

VAT can be something of a minefield when it comes to construction, with the VAT rate depending on the specific circumstances. The applicable rate of VAT will vary depending on the project undertaken and should be considered from the outset to avoid potentially costly errors. The first sale of a newly built residential property will…

The Construction Industry Scheme (CIS) was first introduced in 1971 (named the Construction Industry Tax Deduction Scheme) in order to combat tax evasion in the construction industry. This is done by contractors deducting money from a subcontractor’s payments and passing it onto HM Revenue and Customs on their behalf. The deductions are then considered as…

The Charity Commission has launched a consultation regarding changes to the annual return.   There are a number of new questions, taking the total questions from 36 to 52, although only 32 will be compulsory. The aim of the new questions is to make the annual return more comprehensive, by gaining information around charity’s income…

The All-Party Parliamentary Group for Road Freight and Logistics has today (27 July 2022) urged the Government to approve the introduction of an Essential User Rebate of no less than 15 pence per litre for operators within the logistics sector to combat the effects of soaring fuel prices and inflation.   The call has come…