Category: Insights

At this time of year we think about New Year’s resolutions. It is also a good time to start planning your tax affairs before the end of the tax year on 5th April.
An obvious tax planning point would be to maximise your ISA allowances for the 2017/18 tax year (currently £20,000 each).
You might also want to consider increasing your pension savings before 5 April 2018 as the unused annual pension allowance is lost after three years.
For those looking to do some inheritance tax planning it would be a good time to review (or make) your Will in the light of the recent change in the IHT nil rate band.

There has been much lobbying from the small business sector to reduce business rates. The Chancellor stated that 600,000 small businesses currently benefit from small business rates relief.

In order to support the licensed trade from April 2017, pubs with a rateable value up to £100,000 are able to claim a £1,000 business rates discount for one year. This relief has now been extended until March 2019.

The Government will double the amount that an individual may invest under the EIS in a tax year to £2 million from the current limit of £1 million, provided any amount over £1 million is invested in one or more knowledge-intensive companies.

The annual investment limit for knowledge-intensive companies receiving investments under the EIS and from VCTs will be increased to £10 million from the current limit of £5 million. The lifetime limit raised by such companies will remain the same at £20 million.

Company car benefits are based on CO2 emissions data which has encouraged employees to choose diesel cars due to lower CO2 emissions. The government is trying to reduce the number of diesel cars and will increase the current 3% diesel supplement to 4% from 6 April 2018.

As previously announced radical changes to the company car benefit rules are being introduced in 2020. The benefit in kind for electric cars and hybrid cars with a range of 130 miles or more on the electric motor is being reduced to just 2%. That means that the taxable benefit for such a car with a list price of £30,000 would be just £600 a year. Where the employer allows staff to charge their own electric car at work there will be no taxable benefit.

The basic rate of income tax and higher rate remain at 20% and 40% respectively and the 45% additional rate continues to apply to income over £150,000.

Although Class 2 National Insurance contributions (NIC) for the self-employed are being abolished from 6 April 2019 and “merged” with Class 4 contributions the Chancellor did not dare mention an increase in the current 9% Class 4 rate this time!

There had been rumours that the dividend rate might be increased, but dividends continue to be taxed at 7.5%, 32.5% and then 38.1% depending upon whether the dividends fall into the basic rate band, higher rate band or the additional rate.

The annual ISA investment limit increased to £20,000 from 6 April 2017 and remains at that level for 2018/19. Dividends on shares held within an ISA continue to be tax free.

The Chancellor reminded us that the government are committed to increasing the personal allowance to £12,500 in 2020 and the higher rate tax threshold to £50,000. However, the personal allowance for 2018/19 was only increased in line with inflation to £11,850 and the higher rate threshold to £46,350.

Note that up to 10% of the personal allowance (£1,185) may be transferred from one spouse or civil partner to the other if unused and the transferee is a basic rate taxpayer. This transfer will now be available on behalf of deceased spouses and civil partners, and the claim may now be backdated for up to four years where the entitlement conditions were met.

The government are gradually phasing out the self-assessment tax return and replacing it with an individual tax account pre-populated with data supplied by employers, pension companies and State Pension figures from DWP.

With effect from April 2017, HMRC will have the power to assess income tax or CGT liabilities using information they already hold. This new system will be called “Simple Assessment” and will initially apply to two groups:
Firstly, new state pensioners with income more than the personal tax allowance in the tax year 2016/17.
Secondly, PAYE customers, who have underpaid tax and who cannot have that tax collected through their tax code.

Taxpayers will have 60 days in which to challenge incorrect information in a simple assessment.
We have concerns about the accuracy of this data so please contact us if you drop out of self-assessment and would like us to check the HMRC figures in future.