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Tip of the day

One HMRC Deadline Not to Worry About

31st July payment on account. Miss it?  It’ll cost you 3% interest.  No penalties, no surcharges, no tax-geared penalties.  Just 3% interest. Certainly not worth going to Wonga.com for!

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Tax Credits Deadline Cometh

HMRC say that they will stop tax credits if you don’t get your annual declarations in by the 31st. If the Olympics is an opportunity to catch up with paperwork in front of evening TV, make your tax credits return the priority. Plenty of tax tips to come from me on tax credits, but most […]

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Extending the Companies House Filing Deadline

Yesterday’s tip concerned making the best of a situation where you have missed the filing deadline for your company accounts. Today, I want to look at how to avoid being late in the first place. Now, I regard myself as something of a pragmatist.  I am aware that business owners are busy people and sometimes […]

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Late Company Accounts

A little-known way around Companies House late filing penalties is not to file accounts. Unlike HMRC, Companies House will only give you a penalty when they get the accounts late. If they never get them, you never get a penalty. If you then send in the following period’s accounts on-time, still no penalty; even though there […]

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Know Your Accounting Standards

The Inspector of Taxes has given his word that he will accept any accounting treatment that agrees with Generally Accepted Accounting Principles. Principles that work in your favour are the matching of income with expenditure which allows you to push (at least part) sales back into next year if the service has not been performed in full at […]

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Tax Relief on Interest Paid on Personal Loan Made to Business

If you are having to pump money into your business and you are borrowing in your own name, don’t forget tax relief is available to you on the interest you pay personally when the loan advance is lent to a private trading company or invested in partnership capital. If you pay tax in your own […]

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Tax Relief When Buying a Business

When buying a business, the first negotiation is on price. When price is agreed, you will then negotiate on what exactly you are buying for that price, be it the shares of the company or a mixture of assets and goodwill. Best thing to buy for tax relief: the first £25,000 of qualifying plant and […]

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The Difference Between Creativity and Magic

Making things disappear is magic.  I’m rubbish at magic.  Never could master my son’s junior magic set.  Can’t make income disappear, can’t pull expenditure out of a hat.  That’s the sort of thing that sends you to jail in a puff of smoke. Luckily, I don’t need magic.  I have imagination.  I can create a set […]

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T’s & C’s

If you don’t know your customers, you can’t trust them.  If you can’t trust them, you need terms and conditions to bind them to in the event of a dispute. If you do know and trust your customers, you shouldn’t be wanting to win any dispute, anyway. For trusted and valued customers, the only t’s and […]

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Management Accounts

Management accounts are your friend. If you are a company, your accounts will be prepared in a format that complies with company law. If you are self-employed or in a partnership, your accounts should be prepared with smooth transition to a tax return in mind. Your year-end accounts are unlikely to provide you with information […]

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Self-employed motoring expenses

This one’s for the eyes of the self-employed with turnover under the VAT threshold, only. You lot are a lucky lot.  There is much you can do that your higher turnover and limited company friends cannot. One such thing is to claim tax relief at a rate of 45p for the first 10,000 business miles […]

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Avoiding Penalties

I swear it seems like the Treasury have decided that there is insufficient profit in the economy for a decent tax-take and that they are plugging that gap with penalties, instead. Over the last couple of years, penalties have become more severe for missing filing and payment deadlines.  It used to be the odd £100 which […]

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P11D Deadline Is Upon Us

Horrible things, P11Ds. For many smaller businesses these are often a lot of paperwork trouble for the information that they report. If you find yourself with an obligation to return P11Ds purely because there are entries required for directors, why not re-route the benefits through the directors loan account?  It may have a similar result […]

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Watch out for capital expenditure in these days post 1st April 2012.

We are now into £25,000 annual investment allowance territory. Whether intentional or not, the tax legislation is badly-written. The closer your financial year-end to 1st April, the more even that little £25,000 gets restricted. For example, if you have 31st May as a year-end, you can only claim 100% capital allowances on two-twelfths of £25,000 […]

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