Swiss bank accounts As you may have read, a rogue employee at a Swiss bank stole data on overseas account holders and distributed this to Tax authorities across Europe. As a result, HMRC have begun “fraud” investigations against account holders in the UK. The bank concerned HSBC have told that they will write to all 9000 holders – who were affected by ...read more
5 October deadline If you’ve never filled in a tax return but have received some form of untaxed income or gain – e.g. selling a rental property, you have until 6 months before the tax payment deadline. The most recent completed tax year is the year ended 5 April 2010. Therefore, if you have something to report (relating to that year), ...read more
Naming and Shaming The ability to “name and shame” is one of HMRC’s most controversial powers. 4 conditions must apply: 1. After deliberately evading tax, the individual has suffered at least one penalty. 2.The penalties relate to wrongdoing, tax returns and VAT returns for periods after 1 April 2010. 3.The underpaid tax is £25,000 or more. 4.The individual has not fully co-operated, hence HMRC levied more ...read more
The recent tax coding issue is is of concern to a lot of the working population, but 900,000 will be relieved to know that they have had their underpaid tax written off. This is if they are under the threshold of £300 underpaid tax (increased from £50) Those who have between £301-£2000 of underpaid tax will have this extra tax taken ...read more
NI Holiday This “holiday” scheme started last Monday (6 September 2010), so HMRC clarified matters. The scheme only applies to:
VAT reclaims in time A married couple opened a pub in County Durham, April 2004. They submitted VAT returns, paying sales tax (VAT) to the government every 3 months. However, they didn’t realise that they could reclaim the VAT on purchases – up until they de-registered for VAT in March 2006. Somebody pointed out to them that they had lost out on ...read more
Update 1. Employers lending cycles to employees The HMRC ordinarily taxes loans of cars, equipment etc. as a "benefit in kind". Essentially the benefit of this loan is considered part of the employee's wages. This is generally subject to income tax (20%/40%) and national insurance both for employers (12.8% national insurance) and employees (11% national insurance) Lending a cycle (and helmet) to ...read more