Category: Insights

A furnished holiday letting business is treated as a trade for most tax purposes. For example, capital allowances are available on furniture, and CGT entrepreneurs’ relief is available on disposal of the business.

However, a recent tax case has determined that a holiday letting business in Cornwall did not qualify for inheritance tax business property relief.

Despite the provision of a range of services to customers, the judge agreed with HMRC that the business was wholly or mainly that
of making or holding of investments and as such ineligible for any relief from inheritance tax.

Note that the restricted deduction for interest that started to apply to buy-to-let businesses from 6 April 2017 does not apply to furnished holiday lets.

There are special rules for a rental business to qualify as furnished holiday lettings, in particular the property must be available for letting for 210 days a year, and actually let for 105 days.

With tax planning schemes as with many things in life, what looks too good to be true generally turns out to be so. This seems to be true for tax avoidance schemes using Employee Benefit Trusts (EBTs) as during the summer HMRC won a landmark case at the Supreme Court against Glasgow Rangers Football Club concerning the payment of players and other employees via EBTs. Rangers had argued that the payments were not liable to PAYE and national insurance. The court has agreed with HMRC that the payments should have been treated as remuneration.
The government have been trying to block such schemes for many years with anti-avoidance legislation but various alternative planning strategies have been devised to sidestep the anti-avoidance rules.

As a consequence of the Rangers Supreme Court decision, HMRC are now pursuing employers who have used similar payment arrangements, including Employer Funded Retirement Benefit Schemes
(EFURBS), and in appropriate cases will be issuing follower notices and accelerated payment notices to collect the PAYE, NICs, interest and penalties.

The rules for salary sacrifice arrangements changed with effect from 6 April 2017 and HMRC have updated their guidance for employers. Apart from 5 exceptions the amount assessed as employment income for new salary sacrifice arrangements is now the greater of the salary foregone and the taxable benefit as set out in the tax legislation.

Fortunately, the two most common arrangements are unaffected by the changes – childcare vouchers and pension contributions. The HMRC guidance reminds us of the importance of amending the employee’s contractual salary before the next salary payment. Remember also that the employee’s salary cannot be reduced below National Minimum Wage.

One of the measures affecting pensions announced in the Spring 2017 Budget that was not included in the first Finance Act, concerns a new £4,000 pension input limit for those who are drawing income from their money purchase pension fund.

The new flexible drawdown rules introduced from 6 April 2015 has allowed those with money purchase schemes such as Self Invested Personal Pension schemes (SIPPs) to draw as much or as little as they wish each year. Other than the 25% tax free lump sum, the amounts withdrawn are taxed as income on the Individual. The new £4,000 (previously £10,000) annual limit in the latest Finance Bill is intended to be an anti-avoidance measure to deter pension “recycling” where the amounts withdrawn are reinvested in the pension scheme to obtain further tax relief.

AND INCREASED CONTRIBUTIONS FOR WORKPLACE PENSIONS IN 2018

Auto-enrolment of staff in workplace pension schemes now applies to even the smallest of employers, although there are exclusions. The current minimum contributions are 1% from the employer and 1% from the employee but these limits are scheduled to increase to 2% and 3% respectively from 6 April 2018.
The contributions will then increase to 3% from the employer and 5% from the employee from 6 April 2019. Employees will have a further opportunity to opt out of auto-enrolment.

Please contact us if you wish to discuss any aspects of pension planning.

In order for a shareholder to qualify for CGT entrepreneurs relief on the disposal of their shares, they must be an officer or employee of the company (or group) and hold 5% or more of the company’s ordinary share capital and voting rights for 12 months prior to the disposal. The company must also be a trading company or the holding company of a trading group throughout the same 12 month period.

In a recent tax case, the judge agreed with HMRC that in determining whether or not the shareholders held the required 5% of the ordinary share capital, all of the company’s shares should be considered except those with a fixed rate of dividend (preference shares). A lower court had previously decided that shares with no entitlement to dividends and voting rights could be disregarded.

The P11d benefits on company vans are generally much lower than company cars and where private use of the van is merely incidental to its business use by the employee, then there is no taxable benefit at all. But when is a van not a van?

In a recent tax tribunal case, the judge agreed that a VW Kombi van that had been converted so that it had two rows of seats for passengers was a company car not a van.
Under the employee benefit rules, a van is a vehicle where its primary construction is for the conveyance of goods or burden. Kombi vans and those similar have not previously been thought to fall into this category due to them being designed to carry both goods and people. Historically, HMRC has offered a concession from 2002/2003 onwards for vehicles of a very similar construction, double cab pickups (including both uncovered and covered models), if the payload capacity of the pickup exceeds a metric tonne. HMRC accepts that these vehicles can be treated as a van for benefit in kind purposes. The judge decided that the primary construction of the kombi van was not for the conveyance of goods alone but rather that its purpose was for the conveyance of both goods and people equally. This means that the Kombi did not meet the requirement to be considered to be a van and therefore for benefit in kind purposes it was a car. The same judge however decided that Vauxhall Vivaro vans converted so that they had two rows of seats were vans!

Similar rules apply for VAT purposes so contact us first if you want to check the correct tax treatment of the vehicle you are planning to buy.

If your business has suffered VAT on expenses incurred in another EU country, for example overseas hotel and restaurant bills, then it is possible to reclaim the foreign VAT.

The foreign VAT must not however be reclaimed on the UK VAT return but by using HMRC ‘s VAT online services system.

The foreign VAT refund claims can be made either quarterly or annually but there is a de-minimis amount that may be reclaimed quarterly.

The conditions for being able to reclaim the foreign VAT are that the business must:

• be VAT registered in the UK
• not be registered for VAT in the EU country nor have a place of business there
• not make supplies of goods or services in that EU country, except for transport services

We can assist with your refund claims if this applies to your business.

The rules for taxing dividends changed radically from 6 April 2016 with the removal of the 10% notional tax credit and the introduction of new rates of tax on dividends. For many taxpayers there will be more tax to pay on those dividends on 31 January 2018.

Up until 5 April 2016, the 10% dividend credit meant that basic rate taxpayers paid no tax at all on dividend income as the 10% tax on dividends was covered by the 10% tax credit. For example, where a basic rate taxpayer received £9,000 dividends, this would be treated as £10,000 gross income but the 10% tax of £1,000 would be covered by the £1,000 tax credit. From 6 April 2016 the same £9,000 dividend would now be taxed at 7.5% once the £5,000 dividend allowance has been used making £300 tax due on 31 January.

Where dividends are received by a higher rate taxpayer, the loss of the 10% tax credit means that the full 32.5% rate applies to dividends in excess of the £5,000 allowance.
Thus, if a higher rate taxpayer received £30,000 of dividends, £25,000 of those dividends would be taxed at 32.5% meaning £8,125 due on 31 January 2018. Last year the tax on the same dividends would have been £7,500 after deducting tax credits.

If you can let us have all of your tax documents as soon as possible, we can let you know how much tax you need to pay next January so that you can set aside sufficient funds.