PAYROLL - 17.04.2024
PAYE procedures relaxed for salary advances
Simplification. Following a short consultation HMRC has gone ahead with simplification of PAYE procedures where an employer makes an advance of salary to an employee or director. New regulations became effective from 6 April 2024. Pay now, report later. Until the new regulations became law employers were required to treat a pay advance as a normal salary payment, which in turn meant reporting it to HMRC on a full payment submission (FPS). It’s now possible for employers to make a salary advance without submitting an FPS as long as the advance is not a regular arrangement, it reduces the next normal salary payment only and doesn’t exceed the value of salary accrued by the employee at the time of the advance. ...
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SCAMS - 03.04.2024
Surge in tax scams
Numbers up. According to a recent report from HMRC it received over 207,000 potential fraud referrals in 2023, a rise of 14% compared with the previous year. Even more worryingly is that the scams are becoming more sophisticated and difficult to spot. Self-assessment. You are especially at risk if you’re one of the nearly 12 million taxpayers who submit self-assessment tax returns. HMRC says “Taxpayers who completed their tax return for the 2022 to 2023 tax year by the 31 January deadline might be taken in by an email, phone call or text message offering a tax rebate.” If you receive such a message you should not respond but contact HMRC instead (see The next step ). ...
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INVESTIGATIONS - 03.04.2024
Penalties for not reporting a tax liability
The First-tier Tribunal (FTT) recently had to decide if HMRC was right to issue tax assessments and penalties because a taxpayer had provided inadequate information about her income. What practical advice can be learned from the FTT’s ruling?
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MAKING TAX DIGITAL - 05.03.2024
New MTD trial launches soon
HMRC’s Making Tax Digital for Income Tax Self-Assessment (MTD ITSA) pilot has been a disaster. Despite this, it’s pushing businesses and accountants to use it from April 2024. Should you consider signing up?
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PAYE ENQUIRIES - 02.03.2024
PAYE compliance check - what are your rights?
Our subscriber received a routine HMRC compliance questionnaire which he completed in full. HMRC then demanded more detailed information but without starting an investigation. Is our subscriber within his rights to refuse to supply it?
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INVESTIGATIONS - 20.02.2024
HMRC hunts for undeclared dividends
HMRC campaign. From time to time HMRC runs campaigns to identify where it might be losing tax as a result of oversights, errors or avoidance by taxpayers. It’s recently started a campaign to identify lost tax on dividend income. This will mainly target shareholders of small companies. ...
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