Apologies for the pun, those of you who read this blog regularly ought to be used to them by now... Earlier this year (May 2020) I became a member of the Society of Trust and Estate Practitioners, or STEP as it's more commonly known these days. You'll have seen from my profile that I'd advised in the trust and estate arena for many years, so it was nice for me to add this qualification to my resume, and hopefully, it provides some further assurance for my existing and prospective clients. So, what is STEP and what do they do? Well, I'll borrow a couple of quotes from their website: "STEP is ..read more

Well, it seems HMRC has well and truly joined the digital age, what with Making Tax Digital, the Online Trusts Register, and now we have another to add to the list - the Register of Overseas Entities! Great I hear you grumble, another load of compliance that accountants and their clients need to deal with. So, what is this all about? What is the Register of Overseas Entities? The Register of Overseas Entities came into force in the UK on 1 August 2022 through the new Economic Crime (Transparency and Enforcement) Act 2022. Overseas entities who want to buy, sell or transfer property or land in ..read more

There's a lot going on in the world of tax at the moment, and more to come in the next 12-18 months. Here's a quick rundown on some of the issues that could affect you a the moment... Capital Gains Tax reporting  Last years’ Autumn Budget saw the announcement of the CGT reporting extension affecting everyone who makes a capital gain after selling property. Previously, the deadline was just 30 days for property sellers to report the gains made on a sale and pay the taxes owed. This has been increased to 60 days, meaning anyone who sells a second home or buy-to-let property has two months t ..read more

 After this week’s announcement about a national insurance rise from 2022 I thought I’d try and put it in perspective… I started working in tax in the UK in 2000. Back then the personal allowance was £4,385, basic rate tax was 22%, and NI was 10% for employees and 12.2% for employers… From next April we’ll have a personal allowance of at least £12,570, basic rate tax of 20%, and NI of 13.25% for employees and 15.05% for employers On the face of it, it would seem that overall employee taxes are higher now than they were 20 years ago! However, this is simply not true.  Expressed as a t ..read more

The launch of a social care levy from 2022 will see taxpayers facing a 1.25% tax charge under government plans, while dividend tax will also rise. From April 2022, the government will introduce a new, UK-wide 1.25% Health and Social Care Levy, ringfenced for health and social care. This will be based on National Insurance contributions (NICs) and from 2023 will be legislatively separate.  All working adults, including those over the state pension age, will pay the levy and the rates of dividend tax will also increase by 1.25% to help fund this package. There will also be changes to the am ..read more

I get a lot of inquiries from new clients about trusts, both in the UK and further afield (dare I say the word that shall not be mentioned "offshore"?). These can revolve around whether they would be beneficial to their tax planning for the future, or protecting assets for vulnerable beneficiaries for example. However, in recent months I have started to see a worrying trend in these inquiries, so much so that I thought it was worth writing a blog post about it... So, what is it that has me so concerned I hear you ask? Well, in the space of 5-6 weeks I seem to have come across several new clie ..read more

Well, after what a lot of the media and tax profession expected earlier in the year, Rishi Sunak's latest budget was a bit of a damp squib. I won't get into the political stuff, after all this is a tax blog and I'm sure that there are many better qualified than me to get into that debate! So, what did we see from the Chancellor yesterday? Well, in the short term very little, as the principal changes for most people seem to have been restricted to freezing of tax allowances and tax bands, with no changes to rates of income tax, national insurance, or VAT. What happened to the much-vaunted chan ..read more

HMRC hve been revealed that a secret unit has been created to assess the risks of Family Investment Companies (FICs) to the tax system in the UK, with particular reference to their associated inheritance tax (IHT) benefits. If you're reading this and wondering what a FIC is, then you can find out more about that here. FICs have become increasingly popular with wealthy families in the last ten years, primarily as a result of changes to the taxation of trusts. As you would expect their rise in popularity corresponds to a matching decline in the use of trusts in the UK. Both of these structures ..read more

Rishi Sunak has announced a temporary holiday on stamp duty on the first £500,000 of all property sales in England and Northern Ireland (but not Scotland and Wales as they operate a different system). In effect, this means that the threshold on which no tax is charged has been temporarily raised until March 2021 from £125,000 to £500,000 to boost the property market and help buyers struggling because of the COVID crisis. It is unclear (at the moment) as to whether this will apply to second homes or properties purchased through a company, and I for one will be astounded if it does. However ..read more

A ..read more