If you let a room or rooms in your main home you will not pay any tax on rents received as long as the gross receipts do not exceed £4,250 in a tax year. This relief extends to owner occupiers and tenants who receive rent from letting furnished accommodation in their home. If your gross receipts are more than £4,250 you can...
National Minimum Wage
A reminder to business readers that the NMW rates increased from 1 October 2014; the new rates are: 21 and over £6.50 per hour 18 to 20 £5.13 per hour Under 18 £3.79 Apprentice rate £2.73 Don’t forget that HMRC oversees compliance with the NMW regulations. The types of workers who are not entitled to the minimum wage are: self-employed people running their own business company directors volunteers...
Tax Diary November/December 2014
1 November 2014 - Due date for Corporation Tax due for the year ended 31 January 2014. 19 November 2014 - PAYE and NIC deductions due for month ended 5 November 2014. (If you pay your tax electronically the due date is 22 November 2014.) 19 November 2014 - Filing deadline for the CIS300 monthly return for the month ended 5 November...
Tax avoidance scheme users ordered to pay up
HM Revenue and Customs has sent notices to tax avoidance scheme users to pay over £250 million of disputed tax under the Accelerated Payments regime introduced in this year’s Finance Act. The Financial Secretary to the Treasury, David Gauke, told MPs scrutinising the National Insurance Contributions Bill that over 600 Accelerated Payment notices had been sent since late August. Despite recipients having...
Are your workers employed or self-employed
There can be savings, particularly for employers, if a worker can be paid as a self-employed person. This is particularly so in the construction industry where most workers are engaged by contractors as self-employed subcontractors. What many contractors fail to realise is that they are required to reach a judgement on a worker’s tax status based on a rigid framework determined...
Muras Matters: HMRC Credit Card Campaign
HMRC Credit Card Campaign Background HM Revenue & Customs (“HMRC”) have launched a new initiative, the ‘Credit Card Sales Campaign’ (“the Campaign”), aimed at taxpayers who have received income via a card payment and failed to notify their full tax liability to HMRC. The Campaign is aimed specifically at people who accept card payments for goods or services and haven’t declared the card...
What is the statutory minimum holiday entitlement?
Paid annual leave is a legal right that an employer must provide. Almost all workers are legally entitled to 5.6 weeks’ paid holiday per year (known as statutory leave entitlement or annual leave). An employer can include bank holidays as part of statutory annual leave. Self-employed workers aren’t entitled to annual leave. Most workers who work a 5-day week must receive 28...
Pay when you are paid
Apart from the retail trade and internet traders most of us send an invoice when we provide our goods or services to customers and then wait for the period of credit to expire before we get paid. During this waiting time we still have our own bills and wages to pay so the working capital we have to accumulate to finance...
Muras Matters: Inheritance Tax Free Gifts
Inheritance Tax Free Gifts Background In last weeks Muras Matters we set out how a Will can be varied in order to mitigate Inheritance Tax (IHT) charges on an estate, however there are various exemptions and some simple planning opportunities which can be used before an individual passes away. PET’s Making large cash gifts to reduce the value of an estate is known as...
Reclaiming pre-registration VAT input tax
If you have been trading for some time before you register your business for VAT don’t forget to consider your option to reclaim VAT on goods and services purchased prior to your registration date. For example, if you are required to register for VAT from 1 January 2014, you only need to pay VAT on taxable supplies you make from that...