June Tax Update

This month we welcome four new members to the team – Vera, Benjamina, Lily, and Polly our office plants which are under the charge of Tom.  At the same time we bid a brief farewell to Luke and Tom who will be out of the office for a few days to begin their foray into the world of tax qualifications (good luck!).  To lighten their mood slightly we recently had a non-competitive evening of darts at a local entertainment venue.  Because it was non-competitive there could be no winner… although Anton will tell you differently.

Compliance

As we go into June so ends the possibility for VAT registered businesses to file their returns outside of MTD.  MTD for VAT became mandatory for all VAT registered businesses for quarters beginning on or after 1 April 2022.  There is a raft of software available to make the process as streamlined as possible for clients and advisors alike.

MTD for VAT requires a sperate HMRC authorisation for the client/agent relationship which involves the creating of an online tax account for the business and an agent services account for the advisor.  Whilst this does make the authorisation process itself much quicker (HMRCs 64-8 process relied heavily on snail mail), it can be daunting for those people not familiar with HMRC’s software.  If you would like any help, please do not hesitate to contact us, but be quick…

Advisory

Perhaps it is the news that more people are being brought into charge for inheritance tax or maybe it’s the well-publicised property ‘bubble’.  Either way, more people seem to be looking at ways of structuring their property portfolios in a way so as to bring younger generations into the business earlier (we’re talking adult children – minors can directly hold neither property nor shares).

This could be by disposing of a property directly to your children, forming a partnership, or by incorporating – the tax implications of all need careful consideration as there is income tax, stamp duty land tax, capital gains tax, inheritance tax and corporation tax to think about.

Disclosure

As HMRC service levels are reportedly returning to normal we are surprised at the lack of expected COP9 letters being issued.  Having been in the profession for a longer than I’d care to admit the cynic (realist) in me cannot believe that this is because of a lack of fraud taking place, particularly with the headlines belabouring the misuse of Covid funding.  It’s not to say that HMRC aren’t rallying their troops for an onslaught (perhaps before the summer break..?) collating information from third party sources and their Connect software… we wait with baited breath. In the meantime we are keeping busy with the influx of enquiries relating to offshore irregularities, undeclared let property income, and VAT enquiries