Q. My cafe was badly damaged in the recent riots, but my loyal customers have collected £3,000 to help me open the business as quickly as possible. How should I treat this sum for tax purposes? Is it a personal gift, or a contribution to be set against my repair costs? A. This gift from your customers should be treated as income for your busi...

As an employer you are required to collect repayments of student loans your employees took out through the Student Loan Company (SLC) while they were studying, during years after September 1998.You are told to start making SLC deductions by a form SL1 from the Tax Office (HMRC). HMRC is currently tidying-up the data it holds on employers who collec...

If you have been forced to leave your job in the Middle East and return to the UK, you may be considered resident for tax purposes in the UK in the current tax year (2011/12). This will affect your tax position for this year and possibly next tax year (2012/13). Your residence status for tax purposes can depend on whether you have a full time job i...

Now the standard rate of VAT is 20%, some business owners are tempted to split their businesses into different entities, so the part with non-business customers or both parts falls under the compulsory VAT registration threshold when split. This enables them not to register to have to charge VAT to those customers. The Taxman is alive to this tax p...

The Taxman believes that a lot of businesses do not pay the right amount of tax because they don't accurately record their business income and expenditure. In other words their business records are not of a high enough standard to produce accurate accounts. We agree that many businesses do not keep perfect records but we work with business owners t...

Q. I received my self-assessment statement and payslip on 17 August 2011, which shows tax due to be paid by 31 July 2011. I paid the tax due as soon as I could, but I am now worried that I will get charged interest and a penalty for late payment.A. The late issuing of these statements was due to a lack of paper at HMRC's printers! As the delay was ...

Where your employees use a company car or van, but pay for the fuel themselves, the company can pay a fuel-only mileage rate for business journeys. This fuel-only rate is guaranteed to be tax free when it is equal to or less than the advisory fuel rates set by HMRC. These advisory fuel rates are now revised every quarter. The latest rates applicabl...

With the threshold for 40% tax reducing every year (£35,000 after deducting allowances for 2011/12), it makes sense to review who pays the higher rates of tax within a family. Can some assets be transferred to the partner who pays a lower tax rate to reduce tax?For example a let property could be transferred from one spouse into the joint own...

    Are you thinking about hanging-up your working boots and passing-on your business? This takes a lot of planning to get the best possible tax outcome.If you have younger relatives who could take on the business it is advisable to get those individuals involved in the management for a considerable period before you go. Y...

Stashing money in a Swiss bank account is not against the law. As long as you declare all the income and gains from your overseas investments and bank accounts on your UK tax return, there is no problem at all. Unfortunately some individuals have taken advantage of the Swiss laws which permit banks to keep their customers' details completely confid...