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The government has come under increasing scrutiny this week after a tax agreement reached with Google was labelled a “major success” by George Osborne, but dismissed as a raw deal by almost everybody else.
The £130 million deal, which covered ten years of trading, was branded a “sweetheart deal” by the Labour finance minister, while on David Cameron’s government benches the business minister Anna Soubry admitted that it did not appear to be an “awful lot of money.”
Like other travel and subsistence reliefs, the rules for claiming accommodation expenses are changing from April 2016.
In the new tax year, contractors who have been ‘caught out’ by HMRC’s new tax rules will not be able to offset their accommodation expenses against their income, which could result in thousands of contractors paying more in tax.
Previously, the contracting community was concerned that these changes would affect everybody working through an umbrella or personal service company (PSC).
MPs have reacted angrily to a fresh expenses crackdown, which could mean that they would be housed in ‘special serviced accommodation’ whilst staying in London.
News of this proposal comes just weeks after the Chancellor announced that some contractors caught out by IR35 legislation will no longer be able to claim travel and subsistence expenses in the new tax year.
Under the current guidelines, MPs are allowed to claim up to £20,600 per year for renting a London property. They can also claim a maximum of £150 per night if they stay in a hotel.
HMRC has shelved plans to change IR35 legislation for at least one year. The Association of Independent Professionals and the Self-Employed (IPSE) claims to have received confirmation that no new legislation relating to IR35 and personal service companies (PSCs) would be published in 2016-17.
At the 2015 budget, the Chancellor George Osborne indicated that IR35 Intermediaries Legislation had to be changed because it wasn’t working properly. After a period of consultation, it seems that ministers want more time to assess the impact that any changes will have on contractors.
New Year’s resolutions are notoriously difficult to maintain past the second week of January. How many times have you told yourself that you’ll go to the gym more this year, drink less alcohol or make and save more money?
Sound like you? Perhaps you are just making the wrong resolutions. Make a commitment to go self-employed in 2016 and watch your other ambitions come true as you reclaim control over your life.
A controversial proposal that could see small business owners forced to update their tax bill four times a year will be debated in parliament next week, after an online petition was signed by more than 100,000 people.
The parliamentary petitions committee, which handles online petitions, has scheduled a debate on ‘quarterly tax returns’ for the afternoon of the 25th of January.
Small business owners reacted angrily when the proposal was first announced by Chancellor George Osborne at his Autumn Statement. To vent frustration, business owner Paul Johnson started an online petition that has since been signed by over 107,000 people.
Here at Umbrella Accountants we’ve seen a number of instances recently where clients have chosen to complete their own self-assessment tax returns but completed them incorrectly resulting in large tax bills.
It’s vitally important to understand that being a Director and Shareholder of a Limited Company doesn’t class an individual as being “Self-Employed”. If these sections are completed using information from the Limited Company accounts it can result in not only a nasty tax bill but also charges for Class 4 National Insurance that can also run into thousands.
George Osborne has warned that the health of the UK economy is at risk from shaky global conditions, saying 2016 has opened with a “dangerous cocktail of new threats”.
Speaking in Wales, the Chancellor cautioned that, far from being ‘mission accomplished,’ 2016 will be ‘mission critical’ for Britain.
Self-employed workers, landlords and small business owners are all faced with the prospect of having to fill out four tax returns every year.
Filing accounts quarterly will bring small operations, who currently only have to send their accounts to HMRC once a year, into line with large corporations. Some believe that the extra administrative burden could be harmful to taxpayers but we believe that Umbrella.co.uk accountancy customers will fare better than most.
The plans, which were only recently discovered having been slipped into the small print of George Osborne’s Autumn Statement, will affect around four million Britons.
Top cybersecurity contractors are charging major corporations more than £10,000 per day to protect them against organisational cybercrime.
