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RSM UK's George Bull considers HMRC's tax collection data. HMRC’s latest tax collection data show that 2018/19 was a bumper year for the nation’s biggest tax collector with receipts reaching a record £622bn, that’s £28.9bn up on the previous year. In part that reflects the state of the economy, but it’s noticeable that tax continues to creep up as a percentage of GDP.  Taken together, income tax, NICs, bank payroll tax and capital gains tax make up 54 per ... Continue Reading

Peter Vaines considers two areas where the tribunals are continually telling HMRC it is wrong: Penalties for Non-Resident Capital Gains Tax returns, and HMRC's powers to decide it has discovered an underpayment of tax. Non Resident Capital Gains Tax It is possible that this unhappy episode could be coming to a conclusion. It will be remembered that non residents must file a non-Residents Capital Gains Tax return within 30 days of completion of the sale of a UK residential property, even where ... Continue Reading

A team of leading practitioners have come together and written the STEP Advanced Certificate in Cross-Border Estates. The course deals with current issues such as the EU Succession Regulation, Rome IV Regulations and TIEAs. The materials include practical examples from a range of jurisdictions and checklists so that the content can be related back to day-to-day office work.  This is a distance learning course, so available to you wherever you are based in the world.  One of the course ... Continue Reading

For 40 years or more, HMRC has been seeking a simple distinction between employment and self-employment but has so far failed to find one: RSM UK's George Bull reflects on HMRC's difficulties in recent IR35 cases involving Personal Service Companies:  Reading Andrew’s contributions to our tax brief over the years has been such a pleasure. His final piece above leaves me with the distinct feeling that – to quote the American baseball player Yogi Berra ‘It’s déjà ... Continue Reading

In his valedictory address in this week's tax brief, RSM tax consultant Andrew Hubbard looks back at over 30 years in tax and reflects on how the landscape has changed – for the worse and for the better. To mark my retirement as a consultant with RSM, George has very kindly allowed me to write this week’s lead RSM article. I will continue to be involved in the wider tax world in the future but stepping down from 'active service' as an adviser inevitably does lead me to look back over ... Continue Reading

Not a reluctant buddy road trip movie for the new millennium but a summary of three of the more difficult areas of employment taxation, per recent tax cases as considered by Peter Vaines.   Vans The recent case of HMRC v Coca Cola European Partners Great Britain Ltd [2019] UKUT 90 explains everything you want to know about the distinction between cars and vans. I guess that may not be a whole lot.   However it may be of some interest because the distinction between a car and a van ... Continue Reading

Members of Parliament are clearly running out of patience, while tens of thousands of taxpayers are running out of time. The All Party Parliamentary Group for Loan Charges, (APPG), set up to review the notorious Loan Charge (Finance Act (No 2) 2017 Schs 11 & 12), issued its Final Report yesterday.  The Loan Charge is triggered on any amounts still outstanding on 5 April 2019, and is payable on 19 April 2019 (although some taxpayers may be eligible to agree a repayment schedule - commonly ... Continue Reading

RSM UK's Philip Munn warns that timing your registration for the new Making Tax Digital for VAT regime must be carefully planned, to ensure that you don’t sign up too soon. April 1 Deadline The first and most important message is that for most organisations, Making Tax Digital affects VAT returns beginning on or after 1 April 2019. So, for example, if your organisation’s last VAT return ended 28 February and you report on a quarterly basis, the first VAT return affected by Making ... Continue Reading

What’s the difference between Christa Ackroyd and Lorraine Kelly, asks BKL's David Whiscombe.   No: it’s not the start of a joke: it’s a question that has to be asked to understand why two television presenters in ostensibly rather similar circumstances ended up coming away from the First-tier Tax Tribunal with very different results, Ms Kelly in Albatel Ltd v HMRC [2019] UKFTT 0195 (TC) a few days ago and Ms Ackroyd in C Ackroyd Media Ltd v HMRC [2018] UKFTT 0069 (TC), about ... Continue Reading

When working out the profits or losses of your business, you can deduct any allowable expenses that you incur in running your business to arrive at the profit (or loss) figure before tax. There is a lot of confusion as to what can and cannot be deducted.  To ensure that you claim the maximum permissible deductions for business expenses, it is important that you: understand the rules as to what can be deducted; appreciate what expenses are not allowable, and why;   understand when ... Continue Reading