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This is not the place to discuss your personal options, but this is an ideal time to consider your business and personal financial planning options for 2019.

What are your options?

If Brexit, as it seems likely, has a depressive effect on the UK economy, we may be pushed back into a mild recession. If so, the enthusiasm for investment will decline and businesses will hoard cash.

Accordingly, you might like to consider your present cash position, plan for a levelling off or decline in your sales and pressure on your margins as competitors seek to maintain their competitive advantage; and, you will need to invest some time in considering the effects of any disruption to your supply lines especially if we are faced with a no-deal Brexit.

There has never been a more appropriate time to prepare a formal business plan.

Ideally, the numbers should be entered into your accounts software so that you can closely monitor what is happening to you financially compared to your expectations. In this way you can take remedial action as events unwind rather than considering the mess left behind if you take your eyes off the road ahead.

We can help. Please call so we can make a start on finding the best-fit solution for your business. 2019 will likely be a challenging year. Be prepared.

Named the additional rate, the highest rate of Income Tax is 45%, and some might say 45% is high enough.

However, if the rate of tax is measured as the relationship between income and tax plus tax related penalties paid, there are times when this 45% can rise, to as much as 90%.

For example, if HMRC discovers that a taxpayer has been negligent in declaring all their income for tax purposes, they can charge a penalty. This can be as much as 100% of the tax due – effectively this doubles the rate of tax charged. And so, if you are paying tax on under-declared income at 45%, and if a 100% penalty is levied, the effective rate of tax charged is 90% of the income declared.

Whilst this may be an extreme example, consider taxpayers whose income exceeds £100,000. For the tax year 2018-19, for every £2 your income exceeds £100,000 you lose £1 of your tax personal allowance. This means that taxable income between £100,000 and £123,700 is taxed at an effective rate of 60%.

All is not what it seems.

This article is also relevant to couples who have entered into a civil partnership.

For the tax year 2018-19, taxpayers can make tax-free capital gains of up to £11,700.

This allowance is available on a per person basis and so married couples (and those in a civil partnership) have a combined CGT allowance of £23,400.

Consider married couple John and Joy. Joy wants to dispose of a block of shares before 6 April 2019, but this will create a taxable gain of £22,000. After her CGT allowance is deducted this will create a CGT bill of £2,060 – Joy is a higher rate taxpayer and so she would pay CGT at 20%.

John is retired and has relatively little income for 2018-19 and no capital gains. It is quite legitimate for Joy to gift 50% of her shares to John before they are sold – gifts between spouses and civil partners are free of CGT. Each party would then sell their half-shares and chargeable gains of £11,000 each would be covered by their £11,700 allowance. Hey presto, no CGT to pay.

John and Joy decide to use the tax saved to fund a well earned winter break abroad. Not a bad outcome and an entirely acceptable tax planning ploy.

1 January 2019 – Due date for Corporation Tax due for the year ended 31 March 2018.

19 January 2019 – PAYE and NIC deductions due for month ended 5 January 2019. (If you pay your tax electronically the due date is 22 January 2019)

19 January 2019 – Filing deadline for the CIS300 monthly return for the month ended 5 January 2019.

19 January 2019 – CIS tax deducted for the month ended 5 January 2019 is payable by today.

31 January 2019 – Last day to file 2017-18 self-assessment tax returns online.

31 January 2019 – Balance of self-assessment tax owing for 2017-18 due to be settled on or before today. Also due is any first payment on account for 2018-19.

1 February 2019 – Due date for Corporation Tax payable for the year ended 30 April 2018.

19 February 2019 – PAYE and NIC deductions due for month ended 5 February 2019. (If you pay your tax electronically the due date is 22 February 2019)

19 February 2019 – Filing deadline for the CIS300 monthly return for the month ended 5 February 2019.

19 February 2019 – CIS tax deducted for the month ended 5 February 2019 is payable by today.

Completing your tax return may not have been top of your priorities on Christmas Day, but that didn’t stop 2,616 taxpayers from filing their Self-Assessment returns on 25 December 2018.

For some taxpayers completing their return on Christmas Day is as traditional as spending time with family and friends or waiting for the Boxing Day sales to start. The peak filing time, according to HMRC, was between 1pm and 2pm, when more than 230 customers filed.

Angela MacDonald, HMRC’s Director General for Customer Services, said:

This year, more than 2,600 taxpayers chose to file their returns on Christmas Day.

Whether you fit it in while cooking the Christmas turkey, or after the kids have gone to bed, or after the Queen’s Speech, our online service is available for you to file your tax return at a time that suits you.

More than 11 million taxpayers are expected to complete a 2017-18 Self-Assessment tax return form by 31 January 2019.

Taxpayers who completed a Self-Assessment tax return last year but didn’t have any tax to pay, they will still need to complete a 2017-18 tax return unless HMRC has written to them to say that it is not required.

And don’t forget, the 31st January filing deadline is also the date that any arrears of self-assessment tax and NIC due for 2017-18 will need to be paid. To add salt to the wound, you may also need to make a payment on account for 2018-19.

Our advice, if you have not yet filed your return, do so as quickly as possible. In this way you can see what any tax payments at the end of the month may be before the due date.

The government is to consider new laws to protect consumers who have prepaid for products when a business becomes insolvent.

• Government to consider new laws to protect consumers who have prepaid for products when a business becomes insolvent

• proposed measures will include guaranteeing consumer schemes like Christmas savings clubs can safeguard customers’ money

• reforms are part of the government’s modern Industrial Strategy to ensure markets work in the interests of consumers

New laws to protect consumers who have already paid for products but not received them when businesses go bust will be considered by the government, it was announced Thursday 27 December 2018.

Business Secretary Greg Clark confirmed that during 2019 the government will consult on laws requiring consumer prepayments to be protected in particular sectors. This would further strengthen the government’s ability to respond quickly to problems involving consumers who have prepaid for goods or services before a firm becomes insolvent. Common forms of prepayment include internet orders, the purchase of gift vouchers and money saved in payment schemes marketed as forms of saving like Christmas savings clubs.

If a business running a savings club becomes insolvent, consumers’ money is not protected unlike when it is saved in a UK-regulated bank account. New laws proposed today would see this money safeguarded, with legislation requiring businesses to adopt measures to protect customers against losses – whether that is through trusts, insurance or other mechanisms.

If enacted this announcement by the Department for Business will help to protect consumers who have laid out funds and are waiting for delivery of the relevant goods or services. As much of the concerns of Parliament are Brexit focussed at present it will remain to be seen if meaningful legislative change is completed this year.

Time to let your hair down? Enjoy a festive moment or two with your business colleagues and staff? If you are careful with your budgeting, you can enjoy the event without increasing your tax or National Insurance payments. Here’s what you need to consider:

What's exempt?

You might not have to report anything to HMRC or pay tax and National Insurance. To be exempt, the party or similar social function must all of the following criteria:

• The cost must be £150 or less per head.
• The event must be an annual event, such as a Christmas party or summer barbecue.
• The event must be open to all your employees.

If your business has more than one location, an annual event that’s open to all of your staff based at one location still counts as exempt. You can also have separate parties for different departments, as long as all of your employees can attend one of them.

As long as the combined cost of the events is no more than £150 per head, they are still exempt.

You do have to report how much social functions and parties are worth to each employee if they are a part of a formal salary sacrifice arrangement.

A few additional considerations

• The cost of the function includes VAT and the cost of transport and/or overnight accommodation if these are provided to enable employees to attend. Divide the total cost of each function by the total number of people (including non-employees) who attend in order to arrive at the cost per head.
• The figure of £150 is not an allowance. For functions that are outside the scope of the exemption directors and employees are chargeable on the full cost per head, not just the excess over £150, in respect of: themselves and any members of their family and household who attend as guests.
• If the employer provides two or more annual parties or functions, no charge arises in respect of the party, or parties, where the cost(s) per head do not exceed £150 in aggregate. Where there is more than one annual function potentially within the exemption, HMRC do not expect employers to keep a cumulative record, employee by employee, of functions attended. But for each function the cost per head should be calculated. The cost per head of subsequent functions should be added. If the total cost per head goes over £150 then whichever functions best utilise the £150 are exempt, the others taxable.

If you need help organising your annual celebration in the most tax effective way, please call.

 

From a business perspective there is not much to be merry about this year especially if you need some clarity regarding our impending exit from the EU.

Never-the-less, business owners would be wise to consider the tax-free gifts that can be made to ease the financial needs for extra funds over the festive season.

In particular, make the most of the trivial benefits allowance. Here’s what is available and how you can benefit:

You don’t have to pay tax on a benefit for your employee (including working directors – but see note below) if all of the following apply:

• it cost you £50 or less to provide
• it isn’t cash or a cash voucher
• it isn’t a reward for their work or performance
• it isn’t in the terms of their contract

This is known as a ‘trivial benefit’. You don’t need to pay tax or National Insurance or let HMRC know.

Be careful as:

• you may have to pay tax on any benefits that don’t meet all these criteria, and
• if you provide these benefits as part of a formal salary sacrifice arrangements, they won’t be exempt.

Special rules for directors of ‘close’ companies

As you might expect, HMRC are not keen for owner/directors of small companies to benefit unduly from these tax-free benefits. Accordingly, you can’t receive trivial benefits worth more than £300 in a tax year if you are the director of a ‘close’ company.

A close company is a limited company that’s run by 5 or fewer shareholders.

As we have highlighted in many posts to this blog, from 1 April 2019, ALL VAT registered businesses with turnover above the £85,000 VAT registration threshold will have to submit their VAT returns from within software that can link with HMRC’s networks. In techno- speak, your data will need to be transferred using a designated API (HMRC’s application programming interface).

The fact that you have always prepared your VAT returns electronically, for example, by using a spreadsheet to record transactions and create the data for your VAT returns, will not be enough. Your spreadsheet will not have the functionality to link with HMRC’s API. In these circumstances you will need to acquire bridging software that will draw data from your spreadsheet and forward it the HMRC in the required format.

HMRC have now clarified that only businesses with taxable turnover that has never exceeded the VAT registration threshold (currently £85,000) will be exempt from Making Tax Digital (MTD). You will therefore need to keep an eye on your taxable turnover, especially if you think it is close to the VAT registration threshold.

Additionally, you may be excused from applying the MTD filing obligations if:

• your business is run entirely by practicing members of a religious society whose beliefs are incompatible with the requirements of the regulations (for example, those religious beliefs prevent them from using computers);
• it is not reasonably practicable for you to use digital tools to keep your business records or submit your returns, for reasons of age, disability, remoteness of location or for any other reason; or
• you are subject to an insolvency procedure.

For the rest of us that are required to observe the MTD regulations, we should be using accounts software that will be MTD compliant come 1 April 2019. If you have consulted us on this issue you can be confident that any software that we have recommended will pass muster.

If you are still unsure which way to jump, please call so that we can help. As far as we can tell HMRC are on track to convert to this new filing process and the clock is ticking.

From 1 November 2018, owners of properties on estates or sites that are obliged to pay service charges to a management company – for example, for the maintenance of common areas, gardens, or the employment of a site warden or caretaker – may be in for an unwelcome surprise.

It would seem that HMRC have applied a concession in the past that allowed the management companies to treat service charges collected on behalf of a landlord as part of an exempt supply for VAT purposes – in other words, when the management company charged a resident, no VAT was added to the fee.

From 1 November 2018, if the right circumstances apply, the management company will need to treat the supply of services as a standard rated supply for VAT purposes. As the current rate of VAT is 20%, residents affected may see an equivalent increase in their charges.

However, if the management company for your property is obliged to charge you VAT, it will also be able to claim back VAT on expenses related to your service charge: this is VAT that in the past was a cost to the management company. It is estimated that a more likely service charge increase due to this change in VAT rules will be between 10% to 15%.

Smaller management companies should not be affected by these changes.

As always, unpicking the various “grey” areas of the VAT regulations will likely prove to be a headache for residents and the management companies affected. If you are reading this short article and have concerns, please call for more information.