Guides and Downloads
We believe we are more than just your average accountancy firm. Our goal at Barnes Roffe is to engage our clients through a proactive relationship, which provides you with the resources and tools you need to enable you to take charge of your finances with confidence.
Tax news, audit news and any new accounting news ... with the help of our topical tips, blogs and key guides you can enjoy the benefit of being regularly informed of business and accounting updates which are likely to be relevant to you and your business.
PLEASE NOTE: By the very nature of this type of information the details of tax law might have changed since they were published, so contact your Barnes Roffe partner before acting on any matter contained in these documents.
Tax Tables 2023/24
While the majority of the 2023/24 tax rates were released in the autumn, some changes involved unwinding the announcements of Mr Hunt’s predecessor. With inflation and cost of living concerns foremost for the majority of individual and business taxpayers, the Chancellor needed to balance longer-term economic imperatives with perhaps shorter-term political concerns.
2023 Spring Budget Summary
The first Budget since October 2021 was widely expected to be an uneventful affair. Five months ago, the then new Chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, presented an Autumn Statement that was more of a Budget than many formal Budgets. Not only did his Autumn Statement result in a greater increase in the tax burden than most Budgets – £55 billion by 2027/28 – it was also accompanied by a Finance Bill.
How to increase the value of your business
The main goal of many business owners is to build a business which they will eventually sell or pass on to family members. Therefore, building and increasing business value is an important consideration as you run your business and when you’re making major business decisions.
Year end tax planning
After a fiscally turbulent year – including September’s mini-Budget which Rishi Sunak’s new government rapidly unpicked – tax rises, both overt and stealthy, are the order of the day.
Accessing Your Company Profits
When business owner-managers take profits from their business, it isn’t surprising that they want to do so in the most efficient manner. There are various ways to do this that can minimise both tax and national insurance contributions (NICs). Of course, tax is not the only issue. You will almost certainly need to draw a basic level of income to cover your personal requirements, regardless of the tax cost, and it will also be necessary to retain sufficient profits in the company to cover its future needs.
2022 Tax Tips
This guide highlights 50 ways in which you can currently use certain tax reliefs to your advantage, and how to avoid some of the tax penalties. It can help you navigate the complexity of certain tax rules and create more tax-efficient plans.
2022 Spring Budget Tax Tables
2022 Spring Budget Tax Tables. Allowances, tables and all the data necessary to handle your tax affairs.
Making The Most Of Fringe Benefits
With the rates of national insurance contributions (NICs) having increased by 1.25% from 6 April 2022, fringe benefits have a definite tax advantage when compared to conventional salary. Even if there is not much, if anything, in the way of income tax saving, directors and employees can avoid NICs at 13.25% or 3.25%. Certain tax-advantaged fringe benefits will also mean no, or little, NICs at 15.05% for the employer, with these types of benefit particularly suited to a salary sacrifice arrangement.
You And Yours – Estate Planning
All too often, people put off estate planning. This is understandable as, rather than preparing for the here and now, it requires you to consider what will happen when your life is over, hardly something most of us rush to contemplate.
Investing Tax Efficiently
The whole tax system has grown increasingly elaborate, thanks to revenue-raising tweaks such as the taxation of child benefit and multiple reforms of dividend taxation. As more changes are introduced, the complexities increase.
Making Tax Digital
HMRC has embarked on a plan to modernise the UK’s tax administration system by 2030 to facilitate more digital reporting in ‘real time’, i.e. closer to the time of transactions. This project includes the restructure of HMRC’s own internal systems.
Off Payroll Working
If you work as a contractor, there are three different possible tax treatments which could apply to your engagements depending on your circumstances. For contracts not subject to the off-payroll working (IR35) rules, whether working in the private or public sector, you will
be in a position to withdraw profits on a very advantageous tax basis.
Pension Tax Planning For High Earners
If you are a high earner and feel you are paying more and more tax, you are not alone. Increasing the tax burden for higher earners has been a deliberate policy of successive governments. Higher and additional rate taxpayers now pay about two thirds of all income tax.
Retirement And Tax
Tax does not disappear once you start the retirement process. While your income is likely to fall when you cease work completely, you will still have an income tax liability if your pension and other incomes exceed your available allowances.
Starting And Selling A Business
Although virtually all Covid-19 restrictions have now been removed, anyone contemplating starting a new business, especially a bricks and mortar one, needs to be wary of current economic conditions. Higher energy and fuel prices will not just mean increased costs for your business, but less spare cash for consumers to spend.
Your plans will also need to factor in the current high rate of inflation, increased borrowing costs following four Bank of England base rate increases since December 2021, plus staffing shortages.
Strategies For A High Tax Environment
The income tax system has changed significantly in recent years. Until the spring 2021 Budget, governments had focused on increasing the personal allowance, but despite this the number of income tax payers today is much the same as in 2010/11 and will increase sharply in the next few years because of the freezing of the personal allowance.
At the same time, the share of income tax paid by those with higher incomes has increased: the share of total income tax receipts paid by the top 25% of taxpayers rose from 71.3% in 2010/11 to an estimated 76.0% in 2021/22.
Tax Allowances For Business Investment
The current high level of annual investment allowance for plant and machinery means that for many businesses there is no immediate difference between capital and revenue expenditure.
For companies, the situation might be even better than this because of the introduction of a 130% super-deduction which is available until 31 March 2023. However, where such reliefs are not available, it is important that you benefit from any other available tax relief for capital expenditure.
Taxation of property
Although there are some signs of the housing market cooling off, prices continue to rise and the market is still much busier than it was before the pandemic. The October 2021 Budget and March 2022 Spring Statement have come and gone without any adverse property tax changes; in particular, property income has avoided the 1.25 percentage point tax rate increase applicable to most other types of income, including dividends. However, four Bank of England base rate increases since December 2021 have pushed up borrowing costs. This, together with the current high rate of inflation, looks like it will lead to more modest price increases going forward.
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