Employed? What the forthcoming National Insurance increases will mean for you
To help meet the costs of health and adult social care, a new levy, the Health and Social Care Levy, is introduced from 6 April 2023. Payment of the levy, which is set at the rate of 1.25% of qualifying earnings, is linked to the payment of National Insurance contributions. Prior to the introduction of…
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Using your annual exempt amount for 2021/22
All individuals are entitled to an annual exempt amount for capital gains tax purposes. Net gains (chargeable gains less allowable losses) for the tax year are free of capital gain tax to the extent that they are covered by the annual exempt amount. For 2021/22, the annual exempt amount is set at £12,300. Use it…
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Struggling to pay tax – What should you do?
The January self-assessment payment deadline is not well timed, falling as it does in a month when people may be already struggling to pay their Christmas credit card bills. However unpalatable the 31 January tax deadline is, it is not one that should be ignored. Taxpayers who are within self-assessment will need to pay any…
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New reduced rate of VAT for hospitality and leisure
The hospitality and leisure industry were particularly hard hit by the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic and associated lockdowns. To help the industry recover they benefitted from a reduced rate of VAT of 5% from 15 July 2020 until 30 September 2021. As a temporary measure, a new reduced rate of VAT of 12.5% applies…
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Understanding how dividends are taxed
Dividends have their own tax rules and their own rates of tax. The rules and the rates apply in the same way regardless of whether the dividends are paid from your personal or family company as part of a profit extraction strategy, or whether they represent investment income on shares. As part of the Government’s…
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Disposing of an asset on which capital allowances have been claimed
Capital allowances are the tax equivalent of depreciation, and the mechanism of providing tax relief for certain items of capital expenditure. However, with the exception of cars, capital allowances are not available where accounts are prepared under the cash basis; instead relief may be available as a deduction in computing profits under the cash basis…
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