News and Updates
Shared parental leave
What is Shared Parental Leave and Pay? The Government is changing the statutory pay and leave entitlements for employed parents. For babies due or adopted children matched or placed on or after 5 April 2015 there will be a new entitlement of shared parental pay and...
The NISA ISA
ISA's Isa's are an easy to use tax shelter for investors. There are ISA millionaires out there who have obviously taken care to make sure they made use of the annual allowances and watched that the cash and stocks and shares elements are wisely invested each year. The...
Investing for Children
Child Trust funds and ISAs After 2010 no new Child trust fund bank accounts (CTFs) were allowed; instead children could have money invested on their behalf in a Junior ISA. Both accounts pay interest tax free and an annual maximum, currently £3,720 can be invested...
Tax breaks for married couples
Transferable tax allowances (TTA) won't take effect until 2015/16 and even then the tax savings won't hit you pocket until Summer of 2016. Who Qualifies Only married couples and civil partners will be entitled to TTA's. Either you or your spouse must have income of...
Simplified motor expenses
Simplified tax deductions were announced in the budget for accounting periods ending after 5 April 2013 in relation to profits taxable in 2013/14 for unincorporated businesses meaning self employed individuals and partnerships. However you should think carefully...
Employees mileage reclaim
Mileage Allowance Relief Where an employer does not pay a mileage allowance to an employee who uses his or her own car for work or pays an allowance which is less than the approved amount, the employee can claim tax relief for the shortfall. This can be done in the...
Land Remediation Relief
Tax relief There are many different tax reliefs available but you need to know about them to make sure that you receive the benefit. A lesser known tax relief is 'Land Remediation Relief'' which I thought I would briefly outline to help make landlords, builders,...
Directors Loans
Friend or foe? I often spend time with directors of their new Limited Companies explaining the methods of extraction of funds from the company. One of the aims is to help them avoid getting into the situation of an overdrawn directors loan account which then involves...
Renewals Allowance Scrapped
Wear and Tear or Renewals? Before 1 April 2013 for Companies and 6 April 2013 for other residential property owners, landlords of furnished residential properties had the following options: Renewals allowance - claim the cost of replacing items such as cookers,...
VAT record keeping
What records to keep? For any business it is vital to keep evidence to support all transactions for tax purposes. Records will needed by the bookkeeper, business owner to refer back to and also HMRC. However for VAT purposes HMRC are not always looking for a full VAT...