EJBC Chartered Accountants

As you were born in Croatia your home country is outside the UK, and you probably have the tax status known as ‘non-domiciled’. This is not certain as your domicile for tax purposes depends on a number of matters, including whether you intend staying in the UK in the future. If you are non-domiciled you may be able to ignore your overseas income for UK tax purposes, if the total income and gains left outside the UK each tax year amounts to less than £2,000. However, you must include on your UK tax return any overseas income or gains you bring into the UK, known as a ‘remittance’.

Where your overseas income and gains amounts to more than £2,000, you currently have a choice:

- pay an annual £30,000 tax charge and ignore your overseas income (which remains overseas) for UK tax purposes; or
- declare all your overseas income and gains on your UK tax return.

This a very complicated area of tax and you should discuss your personal circumstances with us before deciding what to include on your UK tax returns.

You may have recently received a letter from the VATman that officially notifies your company or business to file its VAT return online, or face penalties. If your business had a turnover of £100,000 or more in the year ending 31 December 2009 you are legally required to file your VAT returns online, rather than as a paper form, for all periods beginning on or after 1 April 2010. So you can file your VAT return for the quarter to 31 March 2010 on paper, but VAT returns for later periods must be submitted online.

If you don’t agree that your turnover was £100,000 or more in the year to 31 December 2009, you need appeal against the VATman’s decision within 30 days of the date of his letter. The VATman has not sent a copy of his letter to us, so please forward it on if you have concerns about this turnover threshold. If you want us to submit your VAT returns online on your behalf we will need that letter as it contains some key details for the registration process.

Even if you have already filed several of your VAT returns online, and your turnover is over £100,000, you will still receive the notification letter from the VATman, including the expensive glossy brochure. If your turnover is currently less than £100,000 per year, you will not have to file your VAT returns online until 2011. The Government has announced that all VAT registered businesses will be required to file their VAT returns online from April 2011, but that requirement is not law yet.

If your business first registers for VAT on or after 1 April 2010 you will be required to file all your VAT returns online from your first VAT return, even if your turnover is way below the £100,000 threshold.

Although this is a relatively small amount you should correct your tax return for 2008/09. However, before you do so double check that you have also included all the expenses and deductions for that tax year, as it looks bad to the Taxman if you correct your return, or ‘amend’ it in tax-speak, more than once. As you filed your return online you can also amend it online, just log into the self-assessment online area of the HMRC website and pick your 2008/09 return to amend. You have until 31 January 2011 to do this. You may have some more tax to pay for 2008/09 if your extra £280 of income is not covered by losses, allowances or expenses. You should pay the extra tax due as soon as possible as interest will be charged from 31 January 2010.

HMRC are very keen for all businesses and individuals who need to submit a tax return, to keep complete and accurate records. They recently issued a new leaflet that summarises all the records different types of businesses should keep, and those they are required to keep by law. See:
http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/factsheet/record-keeping.pdf   

If you do not keep complete and accurate records of all your income, sales, gains, expenses, and business costs, you will not be able to prove the figures reported on your tax return are correct. If the Taxman challenges the entries on your tax return, and you cannot produce the evidence to back up those figures, he will assume they are incorrect. The Taxman will then think up a more reasonable figure (in his eyes), and look to tax you on that. You may then have to pay the additional tax, interest for late paid tax, and a penalty of up to 100% of the underpaid tax.

You can avoid such a nightmare if you keep accurate and complete records. Talk to us if you are uncertain about what paper and electronic records you should keep.

PAYE and NIC deductions, including student loan repayments, and CIS deductions for the tax period ending on 5th of the month must be paid to HMRC by 19th of that same month. This means your cheque must reach the Taxman’s accounts office by the last working day before the 19th. If you pay electronically the payment must reach the Taxman’s account by 22nd of each month. In most cases you will need to set-up the payment to leave your bank account on or before 19th as the Taxman’s bank does not accept ‘faster payments’, which arrive the same day as they leave.

If all your average monthly PAYE deductions for the tax year are less than £1,500 you can pay those deductions to the Taxman each quarter instead of monthly. In this case the deductions must reach the Taxman’s accounts office by 19th July, 19th October, 19th January and 19th April. If you pay electronically the payment must arrive by 22nd of the relevant months.

These deadlines are particularly important for sub-contractors in the construction industry who currently have ‘gross payment’ status.

Gross payment status allows those firms to be paid without deduction of tax. But the Taxman will withdraw gross payment status if you are up to 14 days late with more than three PAYE payments. If you are more than 14 days late for just one payment gross payment status will be withdrawn. You can appeal against the withdrawal of gross payment status, but you need a good excuse for making the late payments!

From May 2010 all employers will be subject to late payment penalties if they are late with more than one PAYE payment in the tax year. If you regularly pay your PAYE late we should discuss how to improve your systems before the new penalties start.

There is a grain of truth in this myth, however there will still be some tax to pay if you use the vehicle for personal journeys. When your company purchases a van or motorcycle for business purposes it will reduce the taxable profits by 100% of the cost of the vehicle. This only applies where the purchase is covered by your company’s annual investment allowance (AIA) of £50,000. The AIA cannot be claimed for the cost of cars.

Be aware that when you use the vehicle for non-business journeys, there will be a benefit in kind tax charge for you and a NI charge for your company. If you want to transfer the van or motorcycle into your own hands from the company’s ownership, this must be done at the market value and again there will be a benefit in kind charge unless you pay the full value to the company. What’s more, the disposal by the company will claw-back the AIA given and increase the company’s taxable profit for the period in which the transfer is made.

If your business is not VAT registered, you need to keep a 12-month rolling total of your sales (’taxable supplies’ in VAT-speak), to check this total does not exceed the VAT registration threshold (currently £68,000). Taxable supplies are those sales which would be subject to VAT (at 0%, 5% or 17.5%), if your business was VAT registered. Once your 12-month taxable supplies total exceeds the VAT registration threshold you must register your business for VAT within 30 days.

Unfortunately you now also need to keep track of the value of the services you purchase from any overseas businesses. Since 1 January 2010, most overseas services supplied to a business from another business (B2B) are subject to the reverse charge. This means you as the customer need to act as both the supplier and customer for the transaction for VAT purposes.

You must add the value of the overseas services acquired to your total purchases, and add the same value to your taxable supplies total, for VAT purposes only. The addition of the overseas services to your taxable supplies total may push this figure over the compulsory VAT registration threshold, in which case you must register your business for VAT in the UK.

It doesn’t matter whether the business you are purchasing the service from is registered for VAT or not. You still have to apply the reverse charge treatment to the value of the service acquired. There are some exceptions for services relating to land and transport. Please ask us if you are uncertain about when you should apply the reverse charge or register for VAT.

Yes. Interest paid to the Tax Office on late paid corporation tax is tax allowable for the company for the period in which the interest was paid. Likewise interest paid by the Taxman because corporation tax has been paid early, or in excess of the amount due, is taxable.

The income from jointly held bank accounts must always be split equally between the account holders for tax purposes, you cannot elect otherwise. To move the interest into your wife’s name for 2010/11 you need to take your name off the account before 6 April 2010. To achieve this you may have to close the account and open a new account in her sole name. If you have any fixed interest accounts that are due to mature and pay rolled-up interest on after 6 April 2010, you may want to close those accounts before that date. This will ensure the interest arises in the tax year 2009/10 and is taxed at 40% rather than at a marginal rate of 60% if it arises in 2010/11. Check the penalty clauses for closing the account early before you take action.