Month: October 2019

  • Regulator slams poor standards of charity accounts audits

    Most auditors and independent examiners in England and Wales failed to identify failings in charity accounts in 2017/18. The claim comes from the Charity Commission, which scrutinised 296 charity accounts with various annual incomes. The Commission found that accounts reviewed by auditors met its benchmark more regularly than independent examiners. How its benchmark is applied…

  • Self-employed owe £1.6bn to HMRC in late tax payments for 2017/18

    New figures show self-assessment taxpayers owe HMRC more than £1.6 billion in late payments on 2017/18 tax bills. The deadline for 2017/18 submissions came and went on 31 January 2019, with more than 11.5 million taxpayers beating the midnight cut-off – a new high. Despite a record number of tax returns submitted early this year,…

  • Small employers risk losing the employment allowance in 2020

    Plans to remove the employment allowance for large employers from April 2020 could impact on smaller firms. This allowance provides employers with a reduction to their national insurance contributions (NICs) bill of up to £3,000. Employers that claim the allowance can carry it forward from one tax year to the next, but that will stop…

  • Making Tax Digital – Most VAT-registered businesses are signed up for Making Tax Digital

    Almost three quarters (74%) of VAT-registered firms signed up for Making Tax Digital (MTD) before the second stagger deadline last month. HMRC’s figures showed that over 230,000 mandated businesses joined the scheme before the 7 September 2019 deadline. Most (94%) signed-up businesses submitted VAT returns before both the first and second stagger deadlines. Around 80,000…

  • Property investment – good idea?

    With low interest rates, property remains attractive. As the global financial crisis began to bite in 2008, central banks in several nations took action, attempting to shock the world economy back to life by slashing base interest rates. The idea behind this kind of stimulus is to make saving less attractive, hopefully prompting people to…

  • IR35 in the private sector

    Key considerations for contractors before April 2020. Large and medium-sized organisations have just six months left to prepare for changes to off-payroll working rules, which are due to extend to the private sector next spring.  From 6 April 2020, firms that engage private-sector contractors will be responsible for deciding if the rules should apply and…