Marriage Allowance lets you transfer £1,190 of your Personal Allowance to your husband, wife or civil partner – if they earn more than you. This reduces their tax by up to £238 in the tax year. To benefit from this arrangement, you (as the…
Category: Income Tax
What is a reasonable excuse?
HMRC is still required to obtain certain returns from you even if there is no income or tax to declare. Failure to submit will likely trigger late filing penalties and unfortunately, pleading ignorance of your obligations to file “nil” returns is not a reasonable…
Buy-to-let mortgages
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…
What is side-ways loss relief?
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…
Changes to rent-a-room relief
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…
Points based penalties
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…
Director minimum salary levels 2018-19
Many director shareholders take a minimum salary and any balance of remuneration as dividends. This tends to reduce National Insurance Contributions (NIC), and in some cases Income Tax. The planning strategy is to pay a salary at a level that qualifies the director for…
Self-employed tax bills
Whether you pay Income Tax or National Insurance, the effect on your cash flow is the same. The payments are a necessary part of our obligation to fund the activities of State, but the self-employed are often surprised that their bi-annual tax payments cover…
What to do if you can't pay your tax
HMRC will consider extended options for settling your outstanding tax bill. The key is to contact HMRC, explain why you can’t pay on time, and discuss how you can settle any outstanding liabilities. If you can’t pay before the deadline, call the Business Payment Support…
How long should you keep your records?
If you are self-employed, and obliged to submit a self-assessment tax return, you must keep your tax records for at least five years after the 31 January submission deadline of the relevant tax year. For example, if you sent your 2017-18 tax return online by…