A government think-tank, the Office for Tax Simplification (OTS), was briefed to consider a non-tax issue, a restricted form of limited liability for sole traders. At present, a sole trader’s personal assets (including their home) are vulnerable to a claim by business creditors if…
The gradual restriction of tax relief for buy-to-let mortgage interest has received much publicity since the process commenced 5 April 2017. From that date, tax relief is converted from a straight forward deduction against business profits into a basic rate tax deduction. If you…
If a business owner makes a loss as a self-employed person, they can set off the loses against any other earnings of the same year. In effect, the business losses are moved side-ways against other earnings. However, in order for loss relief to be…
Understanding the numbers in your business is crucial to success and can help you make the best decisions for the future. Even if you are happy to leave the sums and analysis to your accountant, there are certain figures that can be really useful…
UK residents can ask for publicly owned land and buildings to be sold if they think that the property is vacant or underused. You will need to track down the owner of the land and ask for the property to be sold. Your application…
Notwithstanding any of the comments that follow, an individual is allowed to make tax-free capital gains of £11,700 during 2018-19. There are also a number of circumstances when a disposal does not create a taxable gain. These include: The sale of personal assets worth…
A new test is to be added to the qualifying criteria for rent-a-room relief from April 2019. The test will require that the individual or individuals in receipt of income – the home owner(s) – will need to share occupancy of the residence in…
In the recently published draft clauses that will form the basis of the Budget later this year, HMRC has outlined a significant change to the way they will be levying penalties for late filing breaches under the Making Tax Digital regulations. Rather than base…
A reminder that from April 2019, HMRC’s much vaunted Making Tax Digital (MTD) scheme will apply to certain businesses. The April 2019 launch will only apply to VAT registered traders. More specifically, MTD will apply to businesses who have a turnover above the VAT threshold…
It would seem, that HMRC is keen to plug the apparent drain from VAT receipts when contractors and sub-contractors charge their customers VAT and then go missing, keeping the VAT for themselves. This is described in legislation as “missing trader fraud”. Their preferred method…