October 2024's Autumn Budget delivered a significant blow to investors with the announcement of increased Capital Gains Tax (CGT) rates. Today, we explore the new rates, how they will affect the sale of assets, and how investors can mitigate their effects.

The post Capital Gains Tax Hike: A Blow to Investors appeared first on Taxfile.

by Ali at Taxfile.

The UK Chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, delivered his Spring Budget on March 6, 2024, amidst a backdrop of subdued economic growth and limited fiscal headroom. The budget aimed to strike a delicate balance between supporting economic activity, controlling public spending, and preparing for future challenges.

If you have missed the announcements, the Key Highlights for the majority of our clients are as follows.

The post Spring Budget 2024: A Balancing Act for the UK Economy appeared first on Taxfile.

The Chancellor Rishi Sunak unveiled his Spring Statement for 2022 on 23 March and in some ways it was more like a mini budget.

Key takeaways from the Spring Statement include:

• The earnings threshold at which you start to pay National Insurance Contributions (NICs) will increase to £12,570 from July 2022. This is currently set at £9,880 (correct at time of writing, March 2022), so will leave people with more money in their pockets.
• Class 2 NICs for the self-employed will also reduce, from April 2022, to zero for profits between £6,515 and £9,568
• 5p per litre has been cut immediately from fuel duty.
• The basic rate of income tax will reduce from 20% to 19% starting in April 2024.
• The Employment Allowance will increase to £5,000 per annum from April 2022. Currently it's set at £4,000. The allowance reduces the NICs that employers have to pay.
• VAT on materials that save energy will be reduced from 5% to zero from April 2022. This should reduce the cost of things like solar panels, heat pumps and insulation.
• Councils in England will be able to pass on their share of an additional £500m in extra Government support via the Household Support Fund. The new tranche is for the period 2022/23. The fund helps vulnerable residents, via councils, with short-term help with things like fuel and household bills, food, clothing and other essentials. The previous tranche ends on 31 March 2022, so this is timely.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-FyysHPtvFU

Watch the Chancellor's 28 minute Spring Statement 2022, as delivered to the House of Commons, in the video above. Alternatively get all the detail in the House's briefing summary here. There's also a

The post Key Takeaways from the Spring Statement 2022 appeared first on Taxfile.

The post Furlough Scheme Extended until End of September appeared first on Taxfile.

Money Saving Expert founder Martin Lewis has announced¹ exclusive news about a possible 4th SEISS Grant for self-employed people. The Self-Employment Income Support Scheme (SEISS) offers direct financial support from the Government for those self-employed people who have seen a significant drop in profits due to the coronavirus pandemic, where eligible. He says the official announcement is currently scheduled for 3rd March 2021 during the Chancellor of the Exchequer's Spring Budget.

Applications for the current 3rd SEISS grant closed on the 29th of January. The fourth SEISS grant period will cover the months February, March and April. Martin's exclusive information suggests

The post SEISS Grant 4 – News Coming Soon! appeared first on Taxfile.

If your small or medium-sized business has struggled due to adverse trading conditions caused by the pandemic, it may be eligible for a support loan through the Government's Bounce Back Loan Scheme ('BBLS'). However, time is running out — you only have until 4 November 2020* to arrange the loan with a lender. That's just a few weeks away at time of writing. There are some great features, so don't miss out if you need financial support ...

The post Bounce Back Loans for Struggling Businesses: Ending 30 November! appeared first on Taxfile.

The Job Retention Scheme (JRS) winds down at the end of October. It will be followed, for the next six months, by a new job support scheme, which subsidises the wages of employees working at least a third of their normal hours, to further support viable UK employers who face lower demands due to COVID-19.

In an attempt to keep employees attached to the workforce, the Government will be introducing a new Job Support Scheme from 1 November 2020, where employees will need to work a minimum of 33% of their usual hours.

For every hour not worked the employer and the Government will each pay one third of the employee’s usual pay. The government contribution will be capped at £697.92 per month.

Employees using the scheme will receive at least 77% of their pay (where the Government contribution has not been capped) & the employer will be reimbursed in arrears for the government contribution. The employee must not be on a redundancy notice.

The scheme will run for six months from 1 November 2020 and is open to all employers with a UK bank account and a UK PAYE scheme.

All Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises (SMEs) will be eligible. Large businesses will be required to demonstrate that

The post Job Support Scheme Replaces the Job Retention Scheme from 1st November 2020 appeared first on Taxfile.

The post The Chancellor’s Autumn Budget 2017 appeared first on Taxfile.

According to a website¹ run by a campaigning group of UK eBay and Amazon business sellers, HMRC and UK traders lost out on £27 billion in sales revenue and taxes from such online marketplaces over the last three years alone. The group has campaigned for some time against over-leniency by HMRC towards overseas traders, particularly from China, who have not been charging VAT on products, despite those products being located (often via UK fulfilment houses) and supplied within the UK. Moreover, the overseas sellers' volumes are also often well over the threshold for registering for VAT if selling from inside the UK, yet many have continued to flout the law and seem to have been getting away with it for a considerable time. That hurts both HMRC in terms of lost VAT and tax revenue, as well as making it difficult for compliant UK sellers to compete against competitor prices that seem ‘too good to be true’.

“This abuse has grown significantly and now accounts for £1 - 1.5bn of the total VAT gap. These overseas traders are unfairly undercutting all businesses trading in the UK, abusing the trust of UK consumers and depriving the government of significant revenue.”

^{(Source: David Gauke MP, Chief Secretary to the Treasury, 16th March 2016).}

Levelling the Playing Field

However, following new changes that came into effect on 1st August, that is now starting to change. While it's not yet a perfect system to fight VAT fraud in online marketplaces and level the playing field for legitimate UK businesses, it is at least a start. Genuine private sellers using the platforms will, though, see a small increase to their costs in the form of VAT now being levied on eBay and Amazon fees, but hopefully it's a small price to pay to make for a more fair, and legal, system overall.

VAT Changes Starting This Month

As part of the March 2016 Finance Bill delivered by then Chancellor George Osborne, UK individuals selling on eBay will begin paying VAT on eBay charges, starting on the 1st of August (2017). The VAT rate will be the standard 20% rate and will be automatically charged on eBay fees to UK sellers who have not registered as business sellers with the company. It may at first seem odd to target non-businesses, but actually this is a way to force the likes of Amazon and eBay to put pressure on those who have not registered with them as businesses when, in many cases, they should have. Such online marketplaces will also potentially become liable for the outstanding VAT on products actually sold if they do not take measures to counter (or remove) non-compliant overseas sellers.

“HMRC will also be given new powers to make online marketplaces jointly and severally liable for the unpaid VAT of overseas businesses who are non-compliant with UK VAT rules and using their platforms to sell through ... These measures will provide HMRC with the tools necessary to tackle the overseas businesses who do not comply with UK VAT rules and help level the playing field for all businesses.”

^(Source)

Those businesses operating within the UK will need to properly register as business sellers, in which case they will generally also need to account for VAT as a business if their taxable turnover is above the VAT threshold of £85,000 (or £70,000 if 'distance selling' into the UK) over the course of a year.

UK eBay sellers, and overseas sellers supplying/fulfilling orders completely within the UK, will now

The post VAT Clampdown for UK Sales on eBay & Amazon appeared first on Taxfile.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UVJqF5NE3BY

If you missed it, you can watch and listen to the entire speech by clicking the video above. For those without 55 minutes to spare, we spotlight the key changes, particularly in relation to tax, National Insurance, the self-employed and small businesses.

• For the self-employed, Class 2 National Insurance Contributions (NICs) were already set to be abolished from April 2018. Today, to the surprise of many, the Chancellor announced that Class 4 NIC rates will increase from 9% to 10% from April 2018, increasing again to 11% in April 2019. The Chancellor said that this was to more closely align self-employed NI rates with those paid by employees, particularly in view of the new State Pension to which the self-employed will now have access.
• Tax-free dividends for those working through a limited company will also be reduced from the current £5,000 level to just £2,000 in April 2018. Corporation Tax will then be charged above that threshold. Again, the reason cited was to bring the self-employed more in line with employees in terms of tax paid overall.
• The National Living Wage, for those over 25, will increase to £7.50 per hour from April.
• From April this year, the personal allowance (the amount people can earn before paying income tax) will increase to £11,500 and to £12,500 by 2020. The threshold for higher rate tax will also increase from £43,000 to £45,000 this April.
• Up to £2,000 (tax-free) will be available towards the cost of childcare for children under 12 from April this year. So for every 80 pence you pay in childcare costs up to £10,000 maximum, the government will add a further 20 pence.
• Those lucky enough to be able to afford it will be able to save up to £20k maximum in their ISAs from this April. There will also be an NS&I bond introduced, which will pay 2.2% interest on a maximum of £3,000 per person.
• There will be help for businesses following business rate increases, particularly pubs, which will receive a £1,000 discount if their rateable value is less than £100k (apparently that's 90% of all English pubs). Also businesses coming out of 'small business rate relief' will be helped through the transition with a promise of increases no larger than £50 per month from next year.
• There will also be an expansion of the clampdown on tax avoidance where some businesses were converting capital losses into trading losses.

Other announcements made by the Chancellor

The post Spring Budget 2017: Key Changes Affecting SMEs & the Self-Employed appeared first on Taxfile.