Tax Plus Blog -
Company cars - fuel rates
Date: 6th June, 2011 | Author: Cathy Corns | Comments: 1
HMRC has announced new fuel rates for company cars from 1 June 2011. For one month from the date of change, employers may use either the previous or new current rates, as they choose. The new rates are: Engine Size Petrol LPG 1400cc or less ...
Junior ISAs
Date: 19th April, 2011 | Author: Cathy Corns | Comments: 1
The Government has now published the draft regulations for its Junior ISAs. A brief summary is: Junior ISAs will be available from 1 November 2011. Children may have one cash and one stocks and shares Junior ISA at any time, with an overall contribution limit of £3,000 per annum. Junior ISAs will be offered by high-street banks, building societies, etc. Funds will be ‘locked in’ until the child is 18. ...
10 days enough for residence?
Date: 5th April, 2011 | Author: Lisa Spearman | Comments: 1
There has been a certain amount of press coverage in recent days indicating that HMRC will argue someone is UK resident if they work for 10 days here. This is misleading and unhelpful in trying to understand the rules. What the Revenue have said is that in assessing whether an individual is on a full time contract of employment abroad they will not challenge the position where UK days are 10 or fewer. Where UK days are more than 10 HMRC may check to satisfy themselves that there is a genuine contract of employment for full time work abroad and that residence or...
Budget 2011 - In Britain to stay?
Date: 29th March, 2011 | Author: Lisa Spearman | Comments: 0
There has been much speculation as to how the special rules for taxing non-doms might change. On Budget Day we found out – at least for this parliament. The good news for non-doms is that they will be able to remit income and/or capital gains tax free for the purpose of commercial investment in UK businesses. This effectively gives up to 50% tax relief on the amounts remitted. We await the outcome of consultation to establish what investments will qualify but in general this is good news for those who want to invest in the UK. Outside the world of...
Budget 2011 - Tax Plus Special
Date: 24th March, 2011 | Author: Costas Pavlou | Comments: 0
Chancellor George Osborne unveiled his Budget on Wednesday 23 March 2011. In response, the team at Mercer & Hole has published a Special Edition of Tax Plus which analyses the issues raised. It can be accessed by clicking here. A new Tax Rates and Allowances card has also been produced in line with the 2011 Budget announcement and can be accessed here. ...
Pensions update
Date: 4th January, 2011 | Author: Steven Harris | Comments: 1
With the recent changes to the pension legislation coming into effect from April next year there has been a flurry of activity within the financial services industry to get our heads around the details. The removal of the requirement to annuitise by the age of 75 to secure a lump sum, allows greater flexibility to draw this at a convenient time, also more of the pension lump sum can be withdrawn. This will be looked upon as a positive benefit. Flexible and Capped drawdown from the age of 55 will replace Unsecured (USP) and Alternatively secured pensions (ASP), but individuals will only...
National Savings & Investments
Date: 25th October, 2010 | Author: Anne McClean | Comments: 0
One of my clients this week asked what to do with his maturing National Savings & Investments (NS&I) index linked certificate. The return on his original investment is the equivalent of 4.38% net. Taking his tax position into account he would have needed to have earned 7.35% gross on an annual basis in an equivalent investment to match the return - which is accessible and risk free - quite a challenge I suspect. NS&I are not currently issuing index linked or fixed rate certificates so anybody with existing certificates about to mature should think twice...
Pension tax allowance
Date: 22nd October, 2010 | Author: Anne McClean | Comments: 0
The latest draft legislation has come out on pensions, which covers a few different areas, but I'll just talk about annual allowance here. The proposal is to reduce the annual allowance from £255,000 down to £50,000. This is the maximum you can contribute during the tax year to a UK pension scheme and includes both individual and employer contributions. We need to see the final legislation, but in principle there are two main areas of planning that are interesting: For controlling directors who are not classed as high earners (£130,000+), there is an opportunity to make a final contribution...
Lord Ashcroft - tax domicile, the latest instalment (or the wisdom of seeking advice early)
Date: 27th September, 2010 | Author: Lisa Spearman | Comments: 0
I am pleased to see that Lord Ashcroft follows the advice in Tax Plus blog – readers of my post of 13 July may recall that I mentioned then that careful planning could avoid the worst impacts of a change of tax domicile. The BBC today reports that this is precisely what was done. Without expressing an opinion on Lord Ashcroft’s actions, it is clear that the key to successful tax planning is forward planning and we would encourage anyone anticipating a change in circumstances to seek advice sooner rather than later. ...
PAYE - how can a tax code be right?
Date: 8th September, 2010 | Author: Cathy Corns | Comments: 0
There has been a lot of press coverage recently about taxpayers paying the wrong amount of tax under PAYE (over and under) and HMRC's need to sort things out. Obviously anyone receiving such a letter needs to check matters out firstly to make sure that HMRC's revised statement of the position is correct and secondly, if there is a request for tax, that it is being made within the prescribed time limits. Matters will not be helped, for those people with advisers, by HMRC's recent announcement that - to save costs - they will no longer...
