Plans to increase National Insurance rates for self-employed people – announced in the Budget last week – have been dropped.

Chancellor Philip Hammond announced on Wednesday that he would not be raising Class 4 National Insurance contributions as he had planned to in last week’s Budget.

Class 2 National Insurance contributions will still be abolished from April next year.  They are paid at a flat rate of £2.80 a week by anyone making profits of more than £5,965 a year.

Our tax card is intended for use as a quick point of reference. Should you require any further information, have a simple question or require detailed advice we are only a phone call away

Tax Card

Budget Book

On Wednesday 8 March 2017 Philip Hammond delivered the last Spring Budget speech of this Government. So what exactly did the Chancellor say and, more importantly, what did it actually mean?

Budget announcements contain many fundamental taxation changes which will affect business and personal lives for the year to come. Written in plain English, we have broken the summary down into the main areas of taxation, including business and corporate, employment, personal and capital. We have also included comments on the more important changes, together with any planning points that may arise.

The summary provides an invaluable update for you and will help you get to grips with the changes. It will remain on our site for you to refer to as and when you need it but if you have any questions, don’t forget we are here to help you navigate […]

We have added two new titles to our current Factsheets:

Charities in Scotland – Trustees Responsibilities

Small Company Accounting

Check out our ‘Information Fact Sheets’ tab for more titles

Our offices will be closed from 12 noon on Friday 23 December 2016 returning on Tuesday 3 January 2017 at 8:30 am.

We would like to wish you all a very Happy Christmas and prosperous New Year!

Take a look at our useful Information Fact Sheets (accessed from our Home page) which have been updated.

We have also added three new titles:

Employee Expenses

Land and Buildings Transaction Tax

Register of People with Significant Control

We have updated our Tax Guide pages which highlight key tax planning points. The guide includes planning points for both you and your business.

The guide suggests many ways in which you can save money on your personal tax bill by taking full advantage of the tax system and points out recent changes which may be of interest to you and your business. It also highlights tax planning opportunities as well as some of the compliance issues you should be aware of.

For example:
• The introduction of the Savings Allowance and the Dividend Allowance
• New tax rates on dividends received in excess of £5,000
• The start of an era of significant annual rises in the taxation of company cars
• Changes in corporation tax rules on loans to shareholders
• Timing of business capital expenditure to maximise reliefs
• Changes to pensions
• Changes in taxation […]

Tax Rates 2016-17

– Please open the link above to view 2016/17 Tax Rates

Budget Summary 2016
The Chancellor presented his Budget to Parliament on Wednesday 16th March 2016.  Please click the link above to open a copy of our Budget Summary.

Pensions – Automatic Enrolment

The role of the employer

To encourage more people to save in pension schemes, the government has placed greater responsibility on employers to provide access to pension provision.

Up until 1 October 2012 there was no requirement for an employer to pay employer contributions into a scheme. There was also no requirement for the employee to enter an employer provided scheme.

Most employers were however obliged to designate a registered stakeholder scheme that employees could join. This obligation has been removed due to the advent of automatic enrolment (or auto enrolment).

What is automatic enrolment?

Automatic enrolment places new duties on employers to automatically enrol ‘workers’ into a work based pension scheme. The main duties are:

• assess the types of workers in the business
• provide a qualifying automatic enrolment pension scheme for the relevant workers
• write to most of their […]