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The taxman has come under pressure from MPs and contracting organisations after it was revealed that HMRC doesn’t include time spent listening to automated messages in their official ‘waiting time’ figures.
January is a busy month for contractors. Many have a back-log of Christmas work and now have less than 2 weeks left to file any outstanding self-assessment tax returns.
For many contractors, the Christmas break finished as quickly as it started. A whirlwind few days of stressed-out travelling and mince pie gorging is all that your average contractor can expect before its back to work.
But the New Year period does offer some space for quiet reflection.
Many contractors will have set New Year’s Resolutions and many of these will have centred on money.
The government’s second Finance Bill has been confirmed, meaning that the tax free dividend allowance will be cut from £5,000 to £2,000 from April 2018.
The cut could cost contractors up to £1,143 a year as the Chancellor continues with his raid on self-employed finances.
The dividend allowance cut was first mentioned in the Chancellor’s Spring Budget speech. Phillip Hammond said: “People should have choices about how they work, but those choices should not be driven primarily by differences in tax treatment.”
The Autumn Budget delivered this week by Chancellor Philip Hammond was better than contractors than many had expected.
But it did include details about a consultation to extend dreaded public sector IR35 compliance rules over to the private sector.
This is a notoriously tricky subject, so we have produced a brief guide will all the information you need to know.
There are troubling signals for contractors in the construction industry as Carillion is forced into liquidation and sector output dips dramatically.
Contributing £90 billion to the economy each year, the construction sector is one of the largest in the UK. It is highly reliant on self-employed workers, with 800,000 of the 2.9 million people working in construction self-employed.
Carillion, the second largest construction company in the UK, went into liquidation on Monday after the company’s banks refused to lend it more money.
The deadline for submitting your online self-assessment tax return is just over six weeks away and accountants are being booked up quickly as time runs out.
Remember that you should have submitted your tax return and paid any taxes you owe by Midnight on 31 January.
With its large team of accountants, Umbrella.co.uk is well placed to help clients complete their self-assessment tax returns on time. But spaces are filling up quickly and opportunities to get help are running out.
Looking for a Christmas present for yourself? How about one that will save you money for years to come – and help you stay out of legal scrapes.
Contractors spend a great deal of their time on the road. And although you can often claim tax back on travel expenses – the sheer number of miles you get through each year can push up the price of your insurance premiums.
Anything that can bring down these premiums is most welcome and that’s where a dash cam can be your best friend.
In amongst the Britain’s Got Talent audition that the chancellor took part in yesterday were some announcements regarding the economy and some good news for contractors. We won’t repeat his numerous Christmas Cracker jokes but here’s the 5 key takeaways for contractors;
Like the Panama Papers before, the latest leak on the tax affairs of the world’s rich and powerful show that the tide is turning against tax avoidance schemes.
There is no suggestion that those implicated in the leaks did anything illegal, the Paradise Papers have reignited a public debate about the global structures that facilitate tax avoidance.
The leak has led to a further blurring of the line between legal tax avoidance and illegal tax evasion. It has also caused serious reputational damage for dozens of individuals and multinational companies.
