4 March 2023
With the corporation tax rate increasing in April 2023, the timing of income and expenditure could be even more crucial over the next few weeks. What do you need to consider?
12 May 2022
What is a foreign tax credit? If you are working in a foreign country and pay income taxes abroad, then you are entitled to get relief in the UK against the UK tax on the same income. This should mean you pay the higher of the two tax liabilities, but not pay twice.
6 March 2022
The first step towards alignment of VAT penalty charges was due to take place from April 2022. The government has announced a nine-month delay. What does this mean for your business
6 February 2022
The very latest version of the Finance Bill, published on 11 January 2022, confirms that HMRC will be allowed to issue discovery assessments to collect tax where it believes a person has failed to report a liability. The HMRC “discovery” powers were updated in 2008 and the new proposed law closes a loophole exposed in a recent court case.
14 January 2022
The government has confirmed that the upcoming Finance Bill will include changes to discovery assessments. This will allow HMRC to recoup unpaid high income child benefit charges going back almost ten years.
26 December 2021
The Statutory Sick Pay (“SSP”) Rebate Scheme is being reintroduced. When will this apply and when can you claim?
3 January 2021
If you have Payments on Account falling due in January 2021 then you may be considering reducing them.
Before you do that you need to read our post about the ability to pay tax over 11 months. Because of the interaction of penalties and the overall uncertainty about earnings, you might want to think about a different strategy about minimising your cash flow while avoiding the penalties.
7 December 2020
If you took advantage of HMRC’s schemes and deferred your tax for VAT and income tax self- assessment because of coronavirus then what options are there to pay? And when is best to do it?
What about your January 2021 payment?
8 July 2020
11 June 2020
A termination payment to a director may become part of your tax planning in these difficult times, if your business has to close.
You be aware that the most tax-efficient method of getting the money out of your company when it closes down is to wind it up and take its cash and other assets. That way the maximum rate of tax on what you receive is 10%, assuming that capital gains tax (CGT) entrepreneurs’ relief (ER) applies. This is true but it overlooks what you might be entitled to receive entirely tax free
30 May 2020
Under the coronavirus special measures, local authority grants can help businesses with Small Business Grant Fund (SBGF) and Retail, Hospitality and Leisure Grant Fund (RHLGF) payments. If your business receives such a grant must it pay tax on it?
9 May 2020
Government Gateway account
You will need a Gateway account to be able to claim the Self Employment Income Support Scheme. Here are the instructions how to create an account.
25 March 2020
Details of the Job Retention Scheme and Business Interruption Loans, as updated on 13/4/20. Now with details of how to claim, and what we will do for you.
The published version of the information is at https://www.gov.uk/guidance/claim-for-wage-costs-through-the-coronavirus-job-retention-scheme and covers the scheme in some detail. HMRC will continue to issue further guidance using their new powers to explain precisely how the scheme will operate.
The Coronavirus Job Retention scheme provide for government grants which will cover 80% of the normal salary of PAYE employees who would otherwise have been laid off as a result of this crisis. The scheme is open to any employer and will cover the cost of wages backdated to 1 March 2020 and will be open before the end of April. It will continue for at least three months, and can include workers who were in employment on 28 February.
17 March 2020
Payroll continuity is vital in these troubled and unprecedented times. One of the major concerns for business is ensuring the resilience of payments to all their employees.
We totally understand that many businesses and accountancy firms rely on a single individual to process their payroll. Therefore, employers have to hope that staff holidays aren’t at times that disrupt this process. In addition, that staff illness does not interrupt the work.
24 January 2020
The AIA – the Annual Investment Allowance – will drop to £200,000 at the end of 2020. If your accounting year crosses that date, then you can expect the new transitional rules to unexpectedly restrict your entitlement further. Are there any steps can you take to work around this? (Spoiler alert: yes)
1 November 2019
Payments on Account are the way in which HMRC get you to pay next year’s tax bill in advance. As a result, the idea is very simple but, inevitably, there are added complications that leave everyone scratching their heads.
17 January 2019
The main VAT registration test for an unregistered trader is based on traders checking historic sales on a rolling twelve-month basis to ensure they have not exceeded £85,000.
But there is also a second test to consider. You must register for VAT if your forecast taxable sales exceed £85,000 in the next 30 days alone. The registration date is the beginning of the 30-day period. This test ensures that large businesses have to register as soon as they start trading in the UK. For example, immediate registration applies to a large retailer opening a new UK shop as a separate limited company.
4 January 2019
If their parents do no claim Child Benefit, then children born since 2013 may miss out on automatically receiving a national insurance (NI) number that entitles them to work and study in the UK.
27 December 2018
IFRS16 is a new international accounting standard for reporting lease transactions. This will become effective for periods commencing 1 January 2019 if your business prepares its accounts under International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) or FRS 101.
If your accounts are prepared under FRS102 or FRS105 then you don’t have to worry about this quite yet.
Whilst the FRC has not set a date to incorporate the changes to IFRS into FRS 102, it is widely expected to be included as part of the 2022 FRS 102 triennial review.
11 June 2018
The High Income Child Benefit charge can result in a parent having to repay the full amount of Child Benefit received. But not claiming Child Benefit may not be the best way to deal with this.
Anyone who is responsible for a child should claim Child Benefit at a rate of £20.70 per week for the first child, and £13.70 for each subsequent child. What’s quoted are the 2018/19 rates and changes should be updated on the HMRC Child Benefit pages once they occur.
2 March 2018
Capital Gains Tax is chargeable on all gains, including your Principal Private Residence (“PPR”), but there are some allowances and deductions which can reduce the tax you have to pay.
23 May 2017
Nicolson have recovered around £1,000,000 in CIS for clients in the past 18 months with one client receiving a cheque in excess of £300,000 that their previous agent told them they weren’t due.
14 May 2017
Angus Nicolson recently represented a client at a VAT Tribunal. The following is an anonymised account of what happened.
21 April 2017
A new flat rate category for limited cost traders will be introduced on 1 April 2017. What are the detailed rules, and are there ways to avoid having to apply the new punitive rate?
15 December 2016
In the Scottish Budget today, Finance Secretary Derek MacKay set the Scottish Tax levels. He announced that the higher rate tax band for individuals resident in Scotland would not increase by as much as that in the rest of the UK.
1 December 2016
Sue and Angus attended the British Accountancy Awards in The Brewery, London this week, where Nicolson Accountancy was selected as the “Independent Firm of the year – Scotland“.
22 October 2016
“Making tax digital” is the latest change to CT600 forms that will affect taxpayers and although it is some distance away HMRC is making major structural changes in preparation. The latest moves, which it announced on 19 September 2016, include withdrawing tax return confirmations for companies.
30 August 2016
The First-tier Tribunal has confirmed that a taxpayer’s statutory records can include statements for a personal bank account if the account is used for business purposes. As a result, HMRC’s information notice requesting those statements was not appealable. Akrill v HMRC [2016] UKFTT 0550 (TC).
24 April 2016
We are delighted to announce that we have acquired the practice of Judge & Co, Chartered Accountants, of Glasgow with immediate effect. Judge & Co was founded in 1999 and serves over 200 clients across Scotland, providing personal tax and accounting services, very similar to our existing clients.
21 April 2016
We have circulated a newsletter for clients to outline the changes in dividend tax which will occur in April 2016, and you can download a copy of the newsletter.
18 February 2016
If you have received a letter this week from DIFI (who manage the electronic systems for Skatteetaten), you might think that your access to Altinn may be being limited significantly.
5 February 2016
The Pensions Regulator (TPR) said that it made 1,021 £400 fixed-penalty notices between 1 October and 31 December on employers that did not automatically put workers into a pension scheme.
9 November 2015
The First-tier Tax Tribunal has refused to allow trading tax relief on the losses of a farmer’s sheep-breeding business, because it had made a loss in several successive years and so had no ‘reasonable expectation of profit’ as required by s68 of the Income Tax Act 2007.
3 September 2015
If you need a SA302 for a mortgage then this tells you how to get a suitable form. The following is the update from HMRC contained in the Agent Update 48, at pages 11 and 12. It is dry, but very important if you are seeking a mortgage.
1 September 2015
At present the Annual Investment Allowance is £500,000, but it is due to be cut to £25,000 from 1 January 2016. Is there a possible way to legally increase your claim?
19 August 2015
The personal tax cost of any company loan you receive is currently low. When the time comes to repay the loan there’s a simple trick you can use to reduce it further. What is this trick and how does it work?
12 August 2015
It’s common for new businesses to incur hefty vat liabilities on start-up costs. While you can claim a tax deduction from profits for these, tricky rules mean you might not be entitled to reclaim all the VAT. What steps can you take to maximise the tax recovery?
26 July 2015
The introduction of the statutory residence test provides more certainty over residence status now that lifestyle factors are less important.
9 July 2015
The 2015 Summer Budget contained a few surprises for everyone, and whilst we all await the fine print in the actual legislation, there are three main issues that are likely to affect our clients.
15 June 2015
The new Scottish rate of income tax to be controlled from Holyrood has moved a step nearer with the publication by HM Revenue and Customs of the technical advice on who will need to pay the new tax when it comes into effect from April 2016.
4 April 2015
New rules on prompt payments came into effect on 1 April 2015. New rules apply to the VAT treatment of prompt payment discounts (PPDs). VAT can only be reduced to reflect the discounted price if the customer pays within the discount period. Previously it applied whether or not the customer paid on time.
2 April 2015
From 6 April 2015 employers with employees under 21 years old will no longer have to pay Class 1 secondary National Insurance contributions (NICs) on earnings up to the Upper Secondary Threshold (UST) for those employees.