As an update to our previous blog Guide to Maternity Leave we've got some good news: parents can now share part of their 52 weeks of maternity leave. Starting from April 2015 a new scheme was introduced to help parents more efficiently organise their time to take care of their new born in its first year. This replaces the previous ...read more
The new season of the Barclays Premier League is nearly upon us, which means that there are only a few weeks left for managers (or owners who think they are managers) to splash some cash on a marquee signing or two before the transfer window shuts. Given the extremely large amounts of money that can change hands when a player ...read more
Despite general support of the Chancellor’s announcement that the corporation tax rate would be decreasing from 20% to 18% over the next five years, many caution the international impact of the decision. Although there are seven other countries in the G20 with lower effective corporation tax rates, George Bull of Baker Tilly warns that the ‘drift towards ever-lower rates of corporation tax in ...read more
I’m sure everyone was glued to the TV during the Budget speech last week, hanging off of George Osborne’s every word. However, on the off-chance that you weren’t (although I can’t think of any possible reason why that would be the case!), then the good news is that we here at Howlader & Co HQ were paying attention, and ...read more
The case of C J Palau & R C Loughran v HMRC UKFTT 0038 is an excellent example of how consulting an accountant could save you time as well as money. C J Palau and R C Loughran decided to convert a property that they owned in to flats which they would then sell on. They wished to make use of ...read more
Chancellor George Osborne is facing mounting pressure from many MPs in his own party to cut the top rate of income tax by 5p to 40p, with Liam Fox and Steve Baker becoming some of the latest names to publicly call for the change in comments made to The Telegraph. Some of the arguments put forward for cutting the ...read more
Many grandparents choose to set aside money for their grandchildren’s future by paying in to savings accounts or junior ISAs. What they may not know, however, is that there are limits on how much can be invested on their behalf before tax becomes an issue. As of June 2015, the ‘annual exemption’, which is the maximum amount that can be given ...read more
According to a new report by Hymans Robertson, the future cost of paying private pensions to the estimated 11 million people in the UK who are in defined benefit schemes is now greater than the country’s gross domestic product (GDP). In the space of just one year, the price tag has risen from £1.7trn to £2.1trn, whilst Britain’s total annual ...read more
If you missed the deadline to file your 2013/14 Self Assessment (SA) tax return, then you may have recently received some good news. In a change of tack, HMRC have confirmed that rather than thoroughly investigating each appeal against a late filing penalty, they will simply accept the excuse, providing it meets their requirements for being “reasonable”. However this revised attitude ...read more
The UK currently has one of the lowest corporation tax rates within Western Europe, at just 20%. However this could change, as Germany and France (both of whom have considerably higher rates at 30-33% and 33-36.6% respectively) push forward plans to introduce a minimum corporation tax rate across the EU. Whilst the aim of this tax harmonisation may be to target ...read more
