autumn statement Articles

The Chancellor, George Osborne will deliver his 2015 Autumn Statement today Wednesday, November 25th at 12.30pm. 

Along with the detail of the spending review, the Autumn Statement is rumoured to include various changes that may affect contractors and freelancers working in the UK. He is, in particular, rumoured to be targeting tax relief on travel and subsistence expenses as well as those contractors who work through their own limited company. 

We will be providing regular updates throughout the speech and on reviewing the full detail of the Autumn Statement once published, which is expected in early December.

We will also be monitoring the responses in the coming days and what these changes will mean.

Christmas is just around the corner and while limited company owners are all a bit old to be sending letters to Santa Claus, we thought we’d draw up a different wish list – one for the chancellor to read before his Autumn Statement.

1)     Reappraise the dividend tax changes  

From April 2016, changes to the rules governing dividend tax payments will make lots of limited company owners worse off.

The changes affecting limited companies will see the notional 10% tax credit on dividends abolished and replaced with a £5,000 tax free dividend allowance. Over this threshold, dividends could be taxed at a rate of up to 38.1% (for additional rate payers). 

HMRC, the UK’s tax authority, has announced that 137 local tax offices are to be closed and replaced with 13 regional tax centres. The announcement which comes after reports emerged that taxman failures were costing the public purse. It has stoked fears of job losses and short term disruption to the tax system.  

One of our Directors at Umbrella.co.uk, Miles Grady BA (Econ) Hons ACA, has performed a detailed review of the HMRC review into Travel and Subsistence expenses and below lists a number of key points into why HMRC should not stop umbrella company contractors