Stamp Duty Land Tax - HMRC has issued a consultation paper on the proposal to introduce a one per cent SDLT surcharge on non-UK residents purchasing residential property in England and Northern Ireland.

Xero Software Training Day is taking place today for our clients at Pera Business Park, we are looking forward to see them.

HMRC advice - prepare for no deal

HMRC is urging business owners to make sure they are ready for a potential no deal Brexit.

Business owners are being urged to prepare now and take steps to ensure their businesses can continue to trade with the EU if the UK leaves the EU without a deal.

HMRC advise:

Businesses should register for an Economic Operator and Registration Identification (EORI) number. UK businesses that have only ever traded inside the EU will not have an EORI number. HMRC are advising that in the event of a no deal exit, businesses will be unable to continue trading with the EU without an EORI number. HMRC figures show that only 17% of potentially affected businesses have registered so far.
Businesses also need to decide how they intend to make the required customs declarations. HMRC advise that most businesses with customs obligations choose to use a customs agent to do this for them.

Businesses that import goods into the UK from the EU using roll on, roll off locations, may also wish to register for new Transitional Simplified Procedures (TSP).

HMRC advise that 'TSP will allow businesses to import without having to make a full customs declaration at the border, and postpone paying any import duties. For imports using other locations, and for exports, standard customs declarations will apply.'

Financial Secretary to the Treasury Mel Stride MP said:

'We want businesses to be able to continue trading with minimal disruption in any scenario but we also know that people tend to leave things until the last minute and we would urge against that.'

Contact us for help in this area.

Avoid property fraud using Land Registry Property Alerts

The Land Registry are encouraging people to set up a property alert in order to warn them if someone attempts to alter key details of their property online.

The scam typically targets homes that are:

* Buy to let
* Mortgage free
* Empty
* The owner lives overseas
* Not registered with HM Land Registry

To protect yourself against the risk of property fraud, you should consider the following:

Track changes to the register
You can sign up to get property alerts if someone applies to change the register of your property, for example if someone tries to use your property for a mortgage.

Put a restriction on your title
You can stop HM Land Registry registering a sale or mortgage on your property unless a conveyancer or solicitor certifies the application was made by you.

Tell your friends and family to raise awareness against property fraud.

The State Pension – will you qualify?

To receive the new state pension you have to have paid a minimum of 10 years National Insurance Contributions (NIC). To receive the full state pension, you need to have paid in for at least 35 qualifying years. Qualifying years don’t have to be paid consecutively, so if you have gaps in your contributions, it’s not too late. The full state pension is currently worth £164.35 per week (in 2018/19), paid every four weeks, that’s over £8,500 per year.

What is a qualifying year?

It counts as a qualifying year if you are employed and earning over £162 per week or you are self-employed and paying NICs. If you earn between £116 and £162 a week from one employer it may still count as a qualifying year.

Voluntary contributions

If you have gaps in your NICs you can make voluntary contributions to cover those that occurred in the last six years, any period before that is deemed to be too old.

How much do I need to pay?

If you are self-employed with profits under £6,205, or if you are self-employed as an examiner, minister, or in an investment or land and property business you will need to pay Class 2 or 3 contributions. For the 2018/19 tax year, Class 2 contributions are £2.95 per week and Class 3 are £14.65 per week.

If you are self-employed and have annual profits of £6,205 or more you will pay Class 2 contributions of £2.95 per week. If you are self-employed and have annual profits of £8,424 or more then Class 4 applies, which is 9% on profits between £8,424 and £46,350, and 2% on all profits above that amount. These are usually paid through self-assessment. To work out your profits deduct your expenses from your self-employed income.

The rates for the previous six years are available online.

Directors

Directors are classed as employees and pay National Insurance on their annual income from salary and bonuses above £8,424. Contributions are calculated from their annual earnings. Different rules apply for tax on dividends.

Further information

To see if you are on track, sign up for a personal tax account on the official government website. This will show how many years of full national insurance contributions you have paid.

Further information about the new state pension can be found at https://www.gov.uk/new-state-pension. You can also find pension information at www.pensionadvisoryservice.org.uk.

Note: The figures used in this article are based on the new state pension which applies if you are a man born on or after 6 April 1951 or a woman born on or after 6 April 1953. If you were born prior to that then the old state pension will apply. Details of the old state pension (also known as the basic state pension) can be found at www.gov.uk/state-pension.

Entrepreneurs Relief
Entrepreneurs’ relief reduces the rate of capital gains tax to 10% on gains arising from qualifying disposals.

From 6 April 2019, the period throughout which the qualifying conditions for entrepreneurs’ relief must be satisfied is increased from one year to two years.

Contact us for more information.