Category Archives: News

Readers who have not yet filed their 2019-20 self-assessment tax return for 2019-20 have less than one month to do so. The online filing deadline is 31 January 2021.

Could clients reading this article, who have not supplied all the information we have requested to complete their outstanding 2019-20 returns, please contact us with any missing information without delay. We are now entering that period of ground-rush where the deadline approaches at ever increasing speed.

Initially, late filing – after 31 January 2021 – will trigger a penalty of £100. After three months this increases to a daily penalty of £10 for a maximum of 90 days. Followed by further penalties beyond this period.

There are excuses for...

The turning of the old year into the potential for the new year has usually generated the Happy New Year salutation. And indeed, we do wish our readers all the very best for 2021.

But what challenges we face. Will schools reopen, are we facing a further national lock-down, will our already extended business owners be able to ride out the continuing challenges to their finances?

HNY looks like wishful thinking and yet if we lose sight of that possibility any return to normality is likely to be uphill and unpleasant.

On the bright side, the Oxford vaccine joins the fray to oppose COVID and Brexit is finally, finally over. Whatever the consequences of both issues we can...

We already have more than our fair share of adversity to deal with at present, don’t let criminals add to your woes by defrauding you of hard-earned cash resources.

HMRC has recently published a warning to taxpayers about scammers posing as HMRC employees. They said:

Self-Assessment customers should be alert to criminals claiming to be from HMRC.

The department knows that fraudsters use calls, emails or texts to contact customers. In the last 12 months, HMRC has responded to more than 846,000 referrals of suspicious HMRC contact from the public and reported over 15,500 malicious web pages to internet service providers to be taken down. Almost 500,000 of the referrals from the public offered bogus tax rebates.

HMRC offer...

In just three short months the present tax year – 2020-21 – will end midnight, 5th April 2021.

The UK’s tax code is predominantly time limited. Any reliefs and exemptions from UK taxes for 2020-21 will mostly expire at the end of the tax year. Accordingly, there is an imperative to review your tax affairs before this date to ensure that available reliefs are utilised or that penalising tax charges are legitimately avoided.

For example, for 2020-21:

• Every UK taxpayer is allowed to realise £12,300 of taxable gains without being subject to a Capital Gains Tax charge. Any unused allowance cannot be carried forward.
• For Inheritance Tax purposes there are a range of gifts that can be made tax-free.
• Taxpayers...