Important – If you are self-employed or in a trading partnership and your accounting year end does not match the tax year (April to March), new annual self-assessment reporting changes will impact you from this tax year.
It’s an interesting question isn’t it. In the UK we’re used to things being relatively cut and dried when it comes to VAT. There is the prevailing rate (currently 20%), zero rated VAT, (0%), VAT exempt (equally 0% but needs to be identified differently to Zero rated) and then the odd few idiosyncrasies such as energy at 5%. But by and large, the overwhelming majority of transactions will be either standard rate, 20%, or zero rated, 0%. That is unless you deal with someone like Amazon, who, it would appear, have been able to agree some of their own rates with HMRC.
Our latest Autumn Tax briefing is now available to download here.
When you split a business to avoid registering for VAT it is called disaggregation and HMRC can perceive this to be deliberate tax avoidance, which carries penalties and could see them treating all the individual businesses as a single entity and taxing them all equally. However, there are legitimate situations whereby disaggregation is acceptable and appropriate.
Following the completion of the latest round of Self-Assessment, HMRC is reported to be looking into undeclared income from short term lettings that it believes should have been included on tax returns in January. Those believed not to have declared income will be sent ‘nudge’ letters.
Back in October 2022, we shared the news that PAYE payments can now be paid to HMRC via Direct Debit in a similar way to VAT payments. But recent reports suggest the system is enduring some teething problems which have resulted in firms receiving incorrect penalties for non or late payment or paying twice to try and avoid penalties.
From October 2022, HMRC is extending the ability for companies to make regular payments via Direct Debit, specifically for PAYE and national insurance contribution liabilities.
HMRC has announced that it will be closing its telephone lines for 3 days during December, to redirect staff time into dealing with a backlog of letters and queries. The phone lines are those primarily dealing with VAT and Corporation tax queries but other services may also be affected as the department tries to deal with a backlog that has built up during the pandemic.
Having identified that their calculations may have contained an error, HMRC has announced that it is set to review the tax returns of around 30,000 individuals, to address concerns that some may have been overcharged. The issue is believed to be isolated to tax bills issued in 2016/17 and specifically relating to the personal savings […]
Over 20,000 freelancers and contractors that used offshore-based umbrella schemes to disguise their income over the last 20 years will have to repay an average of £50,000 in unpaid taxes, HMRC says. Responding to a deadline of 31st May to register earnings held or managed in these trusts, almost 21,000 people had declared their involvement […]
Amid much talk of further tax rises in the pipeline, to help offset the impact of Brexit and to support the Governments planned spending increase on the NHS, HMRC has announced that it had a record tax take in the 17/18 tax year. The total take of just over £605 billion is up 5.4% on […]
Having identified that they are responsible for almost 50% of the £34billion of uncollected tax in 2015-16, HMRC has confirmed that it is focusing its efforts on around half-a-million small businesses at any time. There are some 5 million small businesses in the UK and the move by the tax man has been criticised by […]