Happy new tax year

Why does our tax year end on 5th April? Like so many of the regulations that govern our lives, the legislative processes underpinning these rules are anachronisms – things that belong to the past. For example, the present tax year ends on 5th April 2022. The reason that our tax year ends on this obscure … Read more

Footbal agents

Football agent scores massive own goal

HMRC were quick to publicise their victory in a recent tax case that resulted in a well-known football agent facing a £1.2m tax bill. According to their press release, former football agent Jerome Anderson lost his £1.2 million tax battle with HMRC during a case heard at the Upper Tribunal. This showed that Anderson and … Read more

Think tank

New ideas from government think-tank

At the beginning of August, the Office for Tax Simplification (OTS) – a government department charged with coming up with new ideas to simplify our tax system – issued a number of reports and recommendations. They include a number of interesting topics and we have shared the conclusions below: Changes to capital allowances At present, … Read more

Off shore tax

Undeclared offshore assets

From 1 October more than 100 countries, including the UK, will be able to exchange data on financial accounts under the Common Reporting Standard (CRS). CRS data will significantly enhance HMRC’s ability to detect offshore non-compliance and it is in taxpayers’ interests to correct any non-compliance before that data is received. The most common reasons … Read more

working from home

Working from home

We are often quizzed by clients who are contemplating working from home: what are the tax consequences? And in particular, will I have to pay capital gains tax? Capital gains tax Generally speaking, if your business use is limited to allocating space for a home office, then as long as there is duality of use, … Read more