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New HMRC Service to Replace Closing Enquiry Centres

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Tax adviceHer Majesty’s Revenue & Customs (‘HMRC’) have now completed a 7 month pilot scheme, held across the North East of England, whereby they closed existing HMRC Enquiry Centres and instead offered those requiring extra help with tax-related issues assistance in a different, more tailored way. With the pilot scheme now complete and deemed a success, all Enquiry Centres across the UK will be closed by 30 June 2014 (just a few days away at time of writing) in favour of the new, more tailored system.

Since the end of May, HMRC have already been rolling out the replacement service, being “a new way to support people who need extra help to get their taxes, tax credits and child benefit entitlements right”. The new service will be more tailored to individual needs and will apparently be more efficient than the Enquiry Centres, which have seen demand drastically falling over recent years. So evidently the new service is also about saving the Government money, which is good to see as it helps to reduce the UK’s overall tax burden and mitigates possible tax increases.

The Replacement Service

The replacement service will be available by telephone or face-to-face via a mobile squad of advisers, who will deal with you on the telephone, visit your home or meet you within your local community, if preferred. The HMRC specialist involved will try to resolve, as fully as possible, all tax and tax credit-related queries during the course of the initial session. This will be aided by liaison, during that session, between the adviser and other experts from different departments within HMRC; the aim being to Read more

The Shocking Truth about Tax on the Poor

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How much is taken in taxHave you ever wondered how much of one’s total income is taken up in tax? And I don’t mean just Income Tax. I mean in ALL taxes paid by ordinary taxpayers throughout the course of a year. Such a figure would need to take into account National Insurance (income tax in all but name, some might say), the insidious Value Added Tax or ‘VAT’ – which on its own is a hefty 20% tax on what is often already taxed money for most ordinary taxpayers, and don’t forget to include Council Tax and finally, of course, Income Tax itself.

Well, the answer may surprise you. Before seeing the answer, though, try The Guardian’s little quiz about this and see how you get on. There are only 8 questions, and for each you simply choose from 4 possible answers – so it’s quick to complete and, once submitted, you are immediately taken to a feedback page where you will be told how your answers compared to the average respondent and, more interestingly, what the correct answers were. It’s interesting to note that, in a joint poll by The Equality Trust and Ipsos MORI, nearly 70% of people drastically underestimated how much the poorest pay in tax, as a percentage of their total income. They also over estimated how much the richest pay as a proportion of total income. This wide misconception is due to most people incorrectly focusing only on Income Tax alone which, in reality, only makes up a small proportion of total taxes paid throughout the course of a typical year.

Spoiler alert: be warned that I’m shortly going to divulge the answers Read more

The Taxpayers Charter & how it can help you

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The Taxpayers CharterMany ordinary working taxpayers do not even know it exists, but The Taxpayers Charter is there to make sure that HMRC give you a service that is even-handed, accurate and based on mutual trust and respect. HMRC also want to make it as easy as possible for you to get things right.

The Charter is there to protect you and, better still, it gives you certain rights. In return for 3 simple obligations on your part (honesty, respect for HMRC staff and diligence to get things right) HMRC promises to:

  1. Respect you.
    This includes treating you with courtesy and making you aware of your rights;
  2. Help and support you to get things right.
    This includes processing the information you supply as quickly and accurately as possible and also correcting any mistakes as quickly as they can;
  3. Treat you as honest.
    This includes only questioning what you tell them if they have good grounds to do so;
  4. Treat you even-handedly.
    This includes consideration of any financial difficulties which you may be having and explaining what you can do if you disagree with their decisions, or if you wish to make a complaint;
  5. Be professional and act with integrity.
    Critically, this includes a useful sub-clause to ‘make sure that you are dealt with by people who have the right level of expertise‘ and another to ‘let you know how appeals, investigations or complaints are progressing‘. Here at Taxfile we feel that these may be the most helpful clauses of all, judging by past history;
  6. Tackle people who deliberately break the rules and challenge those who bend the rules;
  7. Protect your information and respect your privacy.
    This includes a sub-clause to respect your legal rights when they visit premises;
  8. Accept that someone else can represent you;
    Hey – we would be happy to represent you!
  9. Do all we can to keep the cost of dealing with us as low as possible.
    For example if you, or your representative (see clause 8 above) feel that an HMRC officer is relentlessly dragging out a tax enquiry with perhaps unfair queries, creating unnecessary work, then Read more

Time for ‘tax year end planning’ (pre-Budget)

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The budget will take place on March 19th 2014 so that gives us all just 5 weeks (at time of writing) for ‘tax year end planning’. So perhaps now is the time to start reviewing investments.

N.B. We’re not financial advisers (we are tax agents and accountants) so we can’t give advice on investments. But let us simply point out that if a portfolio shows signs of some gains, one can usually realise up to £10,900 in capital gains for the tax year 2013/2014, without a capital gains tax (CGT) liability coming into force.

It might also be worth considering making the most of ISA allowances before the tax year ends (April 5th). £11,520 can currently be invested into an ISA for the tax year 2013/2014, of which £5,760 maximum can be in a ‘Cash ISA’. Because you cannot carry forward ISA allowances into a new tax year, there is only very limited time remaining to make the most of the current ISA allowance. Tax benefits in relation to ISAs are well recognised in the UK, so much so that the Treasury has already looked at the possibility of capping their total value … and who knows what news the coming Budget will bring in this regard, particularly bearing in mind the continued need for austerity measures to reduce the budget deficit during these troubled economic times.

If you would like independent financial advice, Read more

Tax return help 7 days a week!

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By midnight on 31st January 2014, you will need to have submitted your self-assessment tax return to HMRC and have paid them any tax due for the 2012-13 financial year. It doesn’t matter if you have zero tax to pay – you still need to submit your tax return on time or you will be hit with an automatic penalty of £100 (delaying even further can, in the worst case scenario, increase this fine to as much as £1,600).

In view of this, for the month of January you can get help 7 days a week from Taxfile in Tulse Hill, South London.

Our team of tax advisers and accountants can help you with your return whatever your employment status. We can help you register with HMRC if you are not already registered, check your form and help fill it in where necessary, make sure you’ve claimed for any allowable expenses to offset tax, make sure you haven’t missed anything or claimed for something you shouldn’t have claimed, compute any tax due (or due to be refunded), and submit your tax return on-line (the only option available this late into January – paper returns are already too late!). Read more