Latest blogs for Specialisms

R&D tax relief, to provide government subsidies to those companies that develop innovation products, services or systems, has been with us for 17 years now. The latest HMRC R&D tax relief take-up report, encouragingly, shows that the following recent improvements to the scheme have increased the amount of tax relief claimed by 22% over the…

The government is to introduce new data protection rules under the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) which takes effect from 25 May 2018. Under the GDPR businesses will have increased obligations to safeguard the personal information of individuals which is stored by the business. These rules apply to the information of customers, suppliers or employees.…

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…

  A parent with spare funds to invest may like to consider purchasing a property for their student son or daughter to live in whilst at university, in order to save on student accommodation costs.   We recently advised a client that, so long as their son or daughter lives in the property as his…

Whiting & Partners, The Corporate Finance Network’s representative firm in Suffolk, has successfully advised an IT security company on its sale to a larger industry player.   The vendors had originally acquired the business via a Management Buy-Out a few years earlier and had significantly grown the business under their ownership. The company had reached…

  Our Property Investors Group have recently updated our ‘A brief guide to…’ documents which are now ready for you to download on our Property sector webpage.   They give help and support with various property related queries relating to stamp duty land tax, treatment of furnished holiday lets and tax for non-resident landlords, for…

  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…

  A new service is now available for individuals who want to limit the contact they receive from charities. The Fundraising Preference Service (FPS) should give individuals greater control over how and when charities can contact them. The FPS, which launched on 6 July, allows individuals to select charities that they no longer want to…

The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) is warning SMEs to take care or face a fine. The warning comes after a company which suffered a cyber attack was fined £60,000. The investigation by the ICO found Boomerang Video Ltd based in Berkshire failed to take basic steps to stop its website being attacked. Sally Anne Poole,…

From April 2018, Land Transaction Tax (LTT) will replace Stamp Duty Land Tax (SDLT) in Wales. Land and Buildings Transaction Tax (LBTT) already applies in Scotland. Like SDLT (and LBTT), LTT will generally be payable on the purchase or lease of a building or land. The new tax may therefore be relevant to house buyers and…