HMRC – Page 2

HMRC Software Errors Affect 2016/17 Tax Returns

HMRC have incorrectly calculated a series of 2016/17 tax liabilities, and in mid 2016 they sent incorrect sample calculations to software houses. As a result, the software houses have been compelled to write those inaccuracies into their 2016/17 tax return packages.

HMRC were notified of this problem in November 2016. I first learnt of it in January 2017, and now it transpires (on 29 March 2017) that HMRC have not been able to rewrite their internal software in time for the 2016/17 tax return filing season! And, that means that the software houses are being required to ship 2016/17 tax return software which they know is inaccurate.

You can’t make this stuff up can you?

This is a mission critical Government body that is incapable of doing tax calculations properly and preparing tax ready software! And next year, they’re imposing the new “Making Tax Digital” rules on all of us. Who knows what else could go wrong?

The problem for 2016/17 arises because tax law is now so complex, and HMRC has failed to get to grips with the interaction of the “savings allowance of £1,000” and the “dividend allowance of £5,000” and the “personal allowance of £11,000” and the “additional rate of tax on income over £150,000”.

The complexity of the interaction between these allowances gives rise to certain combinations of income (and these are not unusual combinations) where the taxpayer can elect to allocate the allowances in the most beneficial way. For example, a combination of small salary and big dividend is enough to create problems for many taxpayers.

It goes like this:

Scenario 1 – If your total income is more that X, and your earned income is between Y and Z then you’re caught.
Scenario 2 – If your total income is more that A, and your dividend income is between B and C then you’re caught.

What’s the solution? HMRC’s official instructions are to file paper tax returns for taxpayers who fall into these groups and not to use online filing! Yes! Seriously! They want paper tax returns by 31 October 2017 for these cases. They’ve not explained what accountants (and taxpayers) should do if they work the records just before the 31 January 2018 filing deadline (for electronic returns), and then discover that one of these two scenarios is an issue. Then you’ll need a time machine to go back to October and get your paper tax return submitted on time.

It’s not the fault of the software houses, it’s HMRC’s fault! The software houses spotted the errors last year. And, the software houses could rewrite their own software now and get it right. However, if HMRC don’t change their internal software, things will go horribly wrong. These software houses are required to produce tax return software which abides by the sample calculations set by HMRC. If their software doesn’t follow HMRC’s computational rules, then the tax return will be rejected by HMRC’s system.

One alternative is to use the software to submit a tax return with an incorrect calculation and pay more tax than you have to! “Couldn’t we just do that, and file the tax return electronically, and then just pay what we think is the right tax” I hear you ask? Theoretically “yes” and then you’ll have a battle to fight with both the Inspector of Taxes (ah, but you self assessed and you chose that allocation of allowances) and with the Collector of Taxes (ah, but you must pay what you said in your self assessment).

You don’t want to go down the route of arguing with HMRC. It’s hellish, time consuming, soul destroying stuff and we regularly have to deal with that. Sometimes it seems like half our working week is consumed by us trying to get HMRC to do their job properly!

The second alternative is to file on paper after the 31 October 2017 deadline and get an automatic £100 late filing penalty!

We’re all going to be filing on paper for 2016/17. And we’re all going to be doing that before the 31 October 2017 deadline. At Proactive we won’t know if your income fits Scenario 1 or Scenario 2 until after you give us your records. And we’re not going to risk getting cases like these arising after 31 October 2017.

And “no” we’re not going to state the values of A, B, and C, and X, Y and Z because half of you will say “ah, well I’m OK then” when you could quite easily have overlooked something. Don’t laugh! It happens far more often than you realise! You will need to help us to get your paper tax return done before 31 October 2017 or you will need to find a different accountant.

That may seem draconian, but it’s the only way to guarantee that everything is done correctly, is done uniformly, and is done on time. It’s a bit like “always comply with the speed limit and you’ll never have to pay a speeding fine”. Guaranteed! Safe! Put it in your diary now, please let us have your records by July 2017 at the latest!

Public Sector Bodies and Freelancers and IR35

On Saturday 21 Jan 2017 the National Audit Office in Victoria opened its doors to a range of geeks and devotees, both within and beyond Government, for the now annual unconference called UKGovCamp. This one was special, the 10th event, and there was a considerable buzz among the 220 participants.

Somehow, my session ended up in a very early slot (one of eight concurrent streams) and a small, intense discussion of IR35 took place.

This is an extremely complex subject. I have recently concluded an IR35 enquiry for a client. It took over 4 years and we won. One firm in Bristol who specialise in IR35 enquiries proudly claim to have won 1,498 out of 1,500 cases they’ve worked on. At the moment I’m happy with “played one, won one” and a tentative claim to a 100% success rate! HMRC are (allegedly) working 600 cases per year, and that’s as much as they can do with the staff at that section.

Anyway, you cannot rely on one session from UKGovcamp, nor this one blogpost, to tell you the full story. And every case is different so you need to get specialist advice. What I am going to focus on here is the changes which are due for 6 Apr 2017 and which relate to freelancers who work in Public Sector Bodies.

The Scales of Justice

The law on this comes from two pieces of legislation:

These rules are collectively known as “IR35” because that was the number of the 1999 press release which foretold this nightmare.

The relevant bits that you need are sections 48 to 61 of ITEPA and all of the Social Security Regs (fortunately that has only 11 sections). The most salient detail is to be found at s49 of ITEPA and s6 of the Social Security Regs. The dialogue is almost identical in each piece of legislation, and I will explain the subtle difference later on. For now, you just need to read the rules below and where it says “intermediary” think “freelance limited company”.

The bullet points

Here’s what you need from the Social Security Regs:

6–(1) These Regulations apply where–

(a) an individual (“the worker”) personally performs, or is under an obligation personally to perform, services for the purposes of a business carried on by another person (“the client”),

(b) the performance of those services by the worker is carried out, not under a contract directly between the client and the worker, but under arrangements involving an intermediary, and

(c) the circumstances are such that, had the arrangements taken the form of a contract between the worker and the client, the worker would be regarded for the purposes of Parts I to V of the Contributions and Benefits Act as employed in employed earner’s employment by the client .

The Case Law

It’s sub section (c) above about “the circumstances” which leads to the inevitable debate about whether a freelancer is truly freelance or is in “disguised employment” and is caught by the IR35 rules.

The most poignant piece of case law which helps us interpret sub section (c) is:

Ready Mixed Concrete(South East) Ltd v Minister of Pensions and National Insurance 1968

This case came out in favour of the worker who was truly freelance, and in his judgement Justice MacKenna set out three tests of how we are to decide if somebody is an employee or not. The three tests in the Ready Mix case can be summarised as . . .

Personal service must be provided by the worker; and
The engager has a right of control of the worker; and
Mutuality of obligation must exist.

If you can show that any one of these three tests is failed, then you are not an employee.

What’s changed as at 6 Apr 2017?

The core legislation hasn’t changed and the case law hasn’t changed. If you were not caught by IR35 before 6 Apr 2017 then, in theory, you are not caught by IR35 from 6 Apr 2017.

What has changed is the decision maker, but only in cases where the worker is working on the premises of a Public Sector Body. Will this later be extended to the private sector? Officially HMRC says they have no plans to do so. The accountancy profession respond to that with a collective and cynical “oh yeah?”

If HMRC can make these rules work in the Public Sector Body then I have no doubt that they will be extended to all engagements involving freelancers.

Under the old rules, it was the responsibility of the freelance worker who decided if the IR35 rules applied. Usually that involved a discussion with his or her accountant, but in law, the responsibility remained that of the freelance worker.

Under the new proposed rules “a person at the Public Sector Body” where the worker is working, will have to make the decision. Somebody on the premises! The rules commence at s.6 Finance Act 2017 and are set out in detail at Schedule 1 to that Act.

The new rules on the decision maker are set out in a new Chapter 10 to be added to Part 2 to of ITEPA 2003. It’s not in the 2003 Act on the legislation.gov.uk web site so the only place we can read about the new section 61T is in The Finance Act 2017. In effect s.61T(1) says that the engager (referred to as “the client” in the legislation) has to tell the end worker that “a conclusion” on status has been made and what that conclusion is.

That is what is changing. It’s not the freelancer, not the recruitment consultant (if there is one involved) but somebody in a payroll office or finance department of a Public Sector Body who will have to “certify” that the freelancer is genuinely freelance, otherwise they will have to operate PAYE on all the income of the freelancer. Early discussions of these changes indicated that the recruitment consultant will make the decision. Later discussions show that this has changed, as the recruitment consultant will not have first hand knowledge of what precise arrangements exist in the workplace. It’s going to be a government worker on government premises who makes the decision.

To help them there will be a new online “status checker” tool. It’s being written by HMRC, so you can guess what sort of bias it’s going to have, and apparently it will be available by the end of January 2017. [Update – then they said “on 20 Feb 2017” then they said “end of Feb 2017” . . . ]

The online tool was finally released at 4pm on 2 Mar 2017. Instead of the clear Yes/No answer that we were all expecting, it sometimes gives a “don’t know”. It has been tried out with a number of famous “stated cases” and it does not always give the same answer that the Tax Tribunals arrived at! Try it if you wish:

https://www.tax.service.gov.uk/check-employment-status-for-tax/setup

In short, somebody at your school, your GP practice, your library, or your ministry is going to understand all of this and certify that you are truly freelance. Yeah? Pull the other one! Whether it’s a smaller or larger Public Sector Body I allege that nobody will risk their own role by making “a wrong decision” and upsetting the powers that be.

This is going to prove very tricky for any freelancer who was “truly freelance” before 6 Apr 2017 and who discovers that apparently they are now not “truly freelance” and therefore presumably were not “truly freelance” before! Quite a few more tax office enquiries will start later this year!

Here’s a suggestion, if you have to make that decision in your public sector body you might decline to do so, on the grounds that you have insufficient legal training to make such a complex decision.

The New Scales of Justice

Where is the new legislation? I can’t find it!

It’s not in the Finance Act 2015 nor the Finance (No. 2) Act 2015 following George Osborne’s announcement of these rules in the 2015 Budget.

It’s not in the Finance Act 2016 which would have had it firmly in place by 6 Apr 2017. And although, in his 2016 autumn statement, Philip Hammond talked about Public Sector workers paying proper taxes, there is no sign of a Finance (No. 2) Act 2016.

We shall have to wait until after the 2017 Budget on 8 Mar 2017 and the Finance Bill 2017 in order to see the rules in black and white. In a normal year the Finance Bill secures Royal assent in about August and then becomes the Finance Act. That assumes that it gets through the committee stages and The Lords without amendment. If you’re unhappy about the proposed new rules contact your MP now.

As the date of UKGovcamp on 21 Jan 2017 all we have is a “consultation process” and an 87 page PDF from HMRC dated 26 May 2016. And a lot of newer memos circulating in the accounting sector and on “paid for” subscription services.

But there is no clarity.

What will I be paid?

Yep! Good question! And even the payroll software industry doesn’t know. I buy payroll software every March, as I need the upgrade before the March payrolls are run, in order that the April payrolls start correctly.

Software houses need to ship the product by mid March at the latest, but nobody knows exactly what the new rules are. What we do know is that:

payroll software pays individuals
payroll software has never before had to pay freelance limited companies
freelance contracts with limited companies provide no date of birth and no national insurance number
payroll software requires either a date of birth or a national insurance number otherwise it won’t work – it won’t know which National Insurance table to use!
workers with relevant student loans have their student loan repayments taken under PAYE
“deemed workers” under these new rules will be liable for income tax and National Insurance under PAYE but will be liable for student loan repayments on their own Self Assessment tax returns and not via PAYE.
payroll software to date has never had to distinguish between liable and not liable for student loan repayments on the basis of “deemed worker” status.
any payroll clerk who gets a form SL1 for you just logs it into the software, because that’s what the rules say.
payrolls are subject to Real Time Information – HMRC gets a packet of data on the day the payroll is run – so this all has to work by pay day in April 2017.
the first weekly payrolls of 2017/18 will be run on or before Friday 7 Apr 2017.
salaries are outside the scope of VAT, but many freelancers are VAT registered and add 20% on to their invoices
payroll software has never had a mechanism to handle VAT because salaries are outside the scope of VAT!
it seems that finance depatments automatically know this and will now just pay you the 20% VAT without paying the net figure from your invoice, because they are naturally clairvoyant!

And, some low paid payroll clerk in some Public Sector Body is not going to worry too much about how accurate the payroll calculations are, they’re just going to somehow do it. In my own experience of working in the Public Sector and in the Private Sector, no payroll clerk has ever taken much interest in getting anything exactly right, other than making sure that their own net pay is correct!

And what will it cost the Public Sector Body? An extra 13.8% in employer’s National Insurance. So whatever their budget is now, they will have to find an extra 13.8% in order to pay their freelance workers (or “deemed workers”). Wait a moment! No! There’s VAT on top of that! So an extra 20% of 13.8% effectively makes the employer’s National Insurance bill 16.56%.

This is moving from the ridiculous to the sublime!

Maybe the recruitment consultancy (if there is one) will cover that extra National Insurance bill! You bet! And they will increase the fee to the Public Sector Body proportionately.

And by the way, “deemed workers” will not be entitled to SSP, SMP, holidays and all the other trappings that you get from being an employee. Just all the taxes with none of the advantages.

The perverse nature of all these rules means that Public Sector Bodies will have all of their workers on an equal footing when it comes to PAYE costs (but no employment obligations). The big problem is that it will cost Public Sector Bodies an extra 20% to engage any freelancer who is VAT registered. And that’s because Public Sector Bodies are not businesses that “make taxable supplies” and are not able to recover the VAT. Have you been told that? Have you included that in your departmental budget for the next year?

Yeah, well thought out George Osborne and Philip Hammond!

Appeals

The good news is that if you’re unhappy with a decision that treats you as a “deemed worker” and not a freelancer, you can appeal . . . to an Employment Tribunal. That’ll take time! The “tribunal stage” of the IR35 case that I recently won took 18 months.

The bad news is that if you want to appeal to a Tribunal, then you will have to wait until after the end of the tax year. So, no appeals on these new rules until April 2018 at the earliest! And based on my expereince no ruling until 18 months after that, making it October 2019 by the time you get an answer to your April 2017 question!

Wiggle room

What scope is there for steering the decision making process? Colin Bishopp points you to some wiggle room. The minor difference between . . .

s.49 Income Tax (Earnings and Pensions) Act 2003
s.6 Social Security Contributions (intermediaries) Regulations 2000

. . . is that section 6 of the Social Security Regs gets a specific mention in another stated case which was heard before Colin Bishopp, a Special Commissioner for HMRC.

Usetech Ltd v HM Inspector of Taxes [2004]

Colin Bishopp said:

“when that analysis shows that those two sub-paragraphs are satisfied sub-paragraph (c) involves an exercise of constructing a hypothetical contract which did not in fact exist”.

And what that means for us is that, in order to come up with a decision about status under IR35, somebody has to prepare a hypothetical contract.

Your first questions about any new freelance engagements in the Public Sector should now be:

“Can I please have a copy of the hypothetical contract that was drawn up in order to evaluate Reg 6.(1)(c) of the Social Security Contributions (intermediaries) Regulations 2000?”

“Who drew it up, and on what date, and what position do they hold in which organisation?”

Let me know how you get on with that. I genuinely would like to know! It’s the sort of document that you’ll need at Tribunal.

Sledgehammer Policy

The Government doesn’t do joined up thinking.

The conversation in the room at the end of the session can be summed up by saying:

give up on freelancing in the public sector
move to the private sector
let that particular public sector body suffer from under staffing
the more they suffer the better, it will make government rethink the rules
some public sector bodies would seize up if all the freelancers left
alternatively, just take a PAYE job directly with the public sector body (with the added safeguards of all the employee law)

The worst thing that can happen is that the freelancer community succumbs to the new rules, accepts lower take home pay and signals to the Government that the policy works. That will lead to the imposition of similar rules on the private sector within a year or two. This is another “poll tax” moment and requires a commensurate reaction.

And if you are inclined to just “go on payroll” you will need a large salary to give you the same disposable income you were accustomed to as a freelancer.

We’ll take the example of a software developer on a day rate of £500 who worked a full year. That’s 233 work days allowing for weekends off, bank holidays off, and 4 weeks holiday. The equivalent annual income at £500 a day is £116,500. The equivalent PAYE salary, to give you the same net as a freelance worker would be £242,700.

Do you work in finance in a public sector body? Here are the figures for you:

Freelancer: 116,500 plus 20% VAT plus the recruitment agency fees
Equivalent employee: 242,700 plus 13.8% employer’s National Insurance

In short, think of a number and double it. I want £500 a day as a freelancer or £1,000 a day as an employee.

To date, budgets in public sector bodies have been based on the premise that you can get freelancers much more cheaply than you can get staff. I can’t believe that George Osborne and Philip Hammond did not already know this. Or have they secretly been plotting to destroy the NHS and other public sector bodies, whilst trying to deflect the blame onto “greedy” freelancers who want ridiculous salaries?

Makes you think? Doesn’t it? The government appear to be trying to crack a nut with a sledgehammer. They’re more likely to be shooting themselves in the foot.

I suppose we could all emigrate?

I really enjoyed UKGovCamp this year!

HMRC System Borked

Late on Thursday 23 Jun 2016, we tried to submit a number of Corporation Tax returns for clients. The data went in (apparently), but the normal response did not come back. We tried again early on Friday with the same blank result.

According to Acorah, our software supplier, this issue (experienced by many accountants) was raised with HMRC on Friday, and whilst the data has arrived on the HMRC systems, it is only the “result” message which is failing. We checked the HMRC status page on both Thursday and Friday and it said the systems were all working normally. It still says “full service available” even though there is clearly something wrong.

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/corporation-tax-service-availability-and-issues/corporation-tax-service-availability-and-issues

So we tried again on Monday, and again just now (approx 11.30am on Tuesday 28 Jun 2016). This time Acorah has provided an alert window to put us in the picture.

Anyway, HMRC haven’t updated us or Acorah and so we don’t know when we can return to normal patterns of work. Apologies if you’re waiting on a confirmation of submission! So are we!

Meal allowances

It’s long been a policy of ours that all employee expense claims (and directors’ expense claims) should be supported by receipts, proving that the relevant expenditure has taken place, and that employee’s claim is for a legitimate business expense. That’s set out in our guide:

Claiming back expenses from your own Limited Company

We don’t need to see every receipt from Pret a Manger for £2.99 sandwiches, but we want the reassurance that you the client make a point of keeping your staff (and yourself) within the rules.

So, here is something that we hadn’t expected, “The Income Tax (Approved Expenses) Regulations 2015” which became law in Dec 2015.

The new regulations give a set of maximum reimbursement rates for meals which will qualify for tax exemption. These come into effect from 6 Apr 2016 and (broadly) apply when the employee is travelling on business.

They are in addition to the cost of the travel and (within limits) do not require supporting receipts. The regulations provide that a sum is calculated and paid or reimbursed in an approved way if it is paid or reimbursed to an employee in respect of meals purchased by the employee in the course of qualifying travel (a ‘meal allowance’).

One meal allowance per day can be paid in respect of one instance of qualifying travel, where that amount does not exceed:

• £5 where the duration is five hours or more;
• £10 where the duration is ten hours or more; or
• £25 where the duration is fifteen hours or more and is ongoing at 8pm.

An additional meal allowance not exceeding £10 per day can be paid in the first two situations where the qualifying travel (in respect of which that allowance is paid) is ongoing at 8pm.

What does this mean?

For a start, it means being away form your normal place of work for “five hours or more” rather than enduring travel of “five hours or more”.

It also means that I am going to continue to keep all my receipts for subsistence and claim the actual amount I incur. That can often be more than £25, given the places where I tend to go and eat. My annual visit, from London to Brighton for dConstruct every September leads to a lot of subsistence costs, so I will continue using what is known as the “receipted basis”, keeping my restaurant receipts and claiming back what I actually spend. If you and your staff want to use the flat rate allowances set out above, then you need to ensure there is a system where travel away from the office is diarised, times are noted and the correct amount is claimed.

Wriggle Room and Late Filing Penalties

Do you have a penalty notice from HMRC relating to the late filing of a 2013/14 or 2014/15 Self Assessment tax return?

Then you may be interested in a working practice which HMRC introduced recently, because they don’t have enough staff to check “reasonable excuse” claims. And whatsmore, they have extended the meaning of “reasonable excuse” which used to be limited to things like . .

Death of a close relative
Burglary
Flood

. . . to include a number of lesser reasons which they previously refused to accept. So “reasonable excuse” now includes . . .

Computer failure
Service issues with HMRC online services
Postal delays

However, these new concessionary rules apply only to 2013/14 and later penalties. Furthermore, you will not secure the cancellation of such a penalty notice until the following two conditions have been satisfied:

The SA tax return for that year has been received by HMRC.
The taxes due for that year have been paid.

Quite why they arbitrarily draw the line between 2013/14 and older years we don’t know. There’s a bit of recent case law which may help though. It’s about being treated fairly by HMRC and if you have an older penalty which might be cancelled under the new working practice, let us know and we’ll try to help.

Dividend Tax 2016/17

Significant changes to the taxation of dividends will take effect from 6 April 2016

Planned changes:

10% notional tax credit being scrapped
Introducing a tax free Dividend Allowance of £5,000
Then, dividends tax rates will be set at 7.5% for basic rate taxpayers, 32.5% for higher rate taxpayers and 38.1% for additional rate taxpayers.

In short, this means that the majority of owners of small limited companies, who take a small salary and large dividend, will see a significant increase in their personal tax bill. With the exception of the first £5,000 tax free band, the tax rate on dividends, whatever your income level will increase by 7.5%.

First £5,000 – 0%
Balance of basic rate band– increase from 0% to 7.5%
Higher rate – increase from 25% to 32.5%
Additional rate – increase from 30.6% to 38.1%

There are discussions in accounting circles about the best ways to minimise the impact of this, but it’s generally accepted that anybody who currently takes a small salary and a large dividend (which takes them exactly to the threshold of the higher rates of tax) is going to see their income tax bill increase by about £1,800 per year.

Self Assessment Tax Returns for all

This will also mean that some company directors who have so far escaped having to complete a Self Assessment tax return (because there was never any personal tax to pay under the old regime) will now be required to file a personal return every year. That’s a separate service which we offer, and whilst you can do your own return if you choose, you may wish to opt for the peace of mind that comes from having it done professionally. We offer two levels of service for this, with the premium service providing you with quarterly updates, tax planning and forecasts, so that you are always forewarned about future bills.

Let us know if this is something that you’d be interested in.

Buy To Let – new tax rules

Two new sets of rules come into force over the next few years.

No more “10% Wear and Tear” allowance

The allowance is being abolished. Starting on 6 Apr 2016, landlords who rent out furnished accommodation will no longer be able to claim the flat rate 10% allowance every year, and instead will be permitted only to claim the actual costs of like-for-like renewals and replacements.

Restriction of loan interest relief

Over a three year period, starting on 6 Apr 2017, the amount of tax relief you can claim for loan interest paid, will be gradually reduced so that by 6 April 2020 landlords who let out residential property (in their own name) will no longer be able to claim the full amount of loan interest relief.

Taken to extremes this may mean that you end up paying tax based on your gross rents, rather than on your rental profit. Let’s consider this hypothetical case of a property being let out in the 2020/21 tax year. We’ll assume that there is an annual income from rent of £25,000 and that the loan interest on an enormous mortgage also comes to £25,000 per year. For simplicity’s sake we will assume that there are no other allowable costs.

Under the current 2015/16 rules the loan interest of £25,000 is set against the rental income of £25,000 leading to a taxable profit of NIL and a tax bill of NIL.

Under the 2020/21 rules the loan interest of £25,000 is disallowed in full, meaning that the rental income of £25,000 (and the absence of other costs) will lead to a taxable profit of £25,000. Assuming a tax rate of 40% that potentially means an income tax bill of £10,000. And having used up your £25,000 of rental income to pay the lender the interest of £25,000 you are faced with a real profit of NIL on which HMRC can still legally demand tax. To soften the blow, there is a restricted relief (see table below) equivalent to basic rate tax relief. However, the result is a real tax bill of £5,000 on a real profit of NIL.

Nobody knows how you’re going to find a £5,000 tax payment if all the income was spent on loan interest!

Beware that some property web sites are saying that the “restricted interest relief” means that basic rate taxpayers won’t be affected. However, they will be affected if the amount of the “Taxable profit”, not the “Real profit”, takes them into the higher rates of tax (see table below). In the past, tax computations used the “Real profit” figure in order to work out which rate band you were in. From now on the legislation is changing so that the tax computations will use the “Taxable profit”.

That’s a subtle but important difference which some property web sites have failed to understand. To put it another way (and subject to transitional rules) your tax rate bands are now established before loan interest is factored in, rather than after loan interest is factored in.

Look carefully at the “real profit” line and the “taxable profit” line in this five year projection:

OK, so this is all hypothetical, but substitute your own figures into that table and you’ll see that almost all residential property landlords will end up paying more tax. The exception will be for landlords who already own a property outright and pay no interest. They will presumably already be used to paying tax on their rental income and will notice no material difference. And, any landlords with pitiful rental income and pitiful other income (who stay wholly within the basic rate band) will also be unaffected.

In the three intervening years 2017/18 and 2018/19 and 2019/20 the 100% withdrawal of the allowably of loan interest will be phased in, in 25% tranches, meaning that in:

2017/18– 25% of the loan interest is disallowed, with a basic rate tax reduction applied to that 25%
2018/19– 50% of the loan interest is disallowed, with a basic rate tax reduction applied to that 50%
2019/20– 75% of the loan interest is disallowed, with a basic rate tax reduction applied to that 75%
2020/21– 100% of the loan interest is disallowed, with a basic rate tax reduction applied to that 100%

There is no similar rule for companies which let out residential properties, and the current incarnation of the new rules applies only to individual landlords. As a result, landlords with an existing portfolio and who are likely to have additional tax to pay under the proposals have to consider how best to cope with this measure – whether to:

Sell up, or
Transfer the property into a limited company (which would involve paying Stamp Duty Land Tax and potentially Capital Gains Tax on the sale – as well as arranging a new mortgage), or
Do nothing and pay any additional tax.

Beware that a number of Property Websites may now be offering solutions which lead to you incorporating a limited company. As things stand, that will mitigate the problem, but as things stand, there is nothing to prevent The Chancellor from applying similar rules to limited companies in his next Budget!

Lastly, with effect from 6 Apr 2023, landlords will have to provide quarterly reports of their income and expenses. That creates the paradoxical situation where the 2022/23 SA return will not be due until 31 Jan 2024 but the later “first quarter report” for 6 Apr – 5 Jul 2023 will presumably be due sooner, and most likely within one calendar month of the quarter end, meaning that it becomes due on 5 Aug 2023. That’s how quarterly VAT returns work, and we’re guessing that’s how “quarterly lettings returns” will work too.

Footnote 1

This report was modified on 4 Dec 2015 to show how the restricted interest relief works.

We also learnt on 4 Dec 2015 that major banks (and finance houses) are sufficiently worried by these new rules (and a possible loss of business), that they are looking at ways to facilitate landlords to move from private ownership to corporate ownership of residential properties. There are no “products” on the market yet, but they may come.

Footnote 2

This report was modified on 22 Jul 2020 because HMRC has delayed the implementation of MTD for landlords to 6 Apr 2023.

Where is BX9 1BX? What happens to HMRC post?

Have you had a letter from HMRC with the new BX9 1BX address? Did you write back to it? What happened to your letter?

BX9 1BX is an artificial post code and it’s not on the Royal Mail database. It’s a mail handling facility operated by HMRC in Bexley, Kent. Letters are opened and scanned and electronically dispatched to other HMRC offices. Occasionally, bulky items are forwarded as originals (using internal mail) to the HMRC office which is to deal with them.

In Jun 2006 we adopted a policy of sending all communications to HMRC by Special Delivery, because they fail to handle phone calls well, and they tend to lose ordinary mail. They also routinely fail to sign for Recorded Delivery letters so it has to be Special Delivery. When all of the offices consolidated a few years back, we resorted to using this main address for nearly all the mail we send to HMRC:

HM Revenue and Customs
Benton Park View
Newcastle Upon Tyne
NE98 1ZZ

That’s another mail handling facility just like the one in Bexley. Interestingly, the HMRC web site tells couriers to always use the Newcastle address.

You can check that web page here. Incidentally, the NE98 1ZZ postcode is on the Royal Mail database.

So this letter really amused us:

Perhaps somebody should let Mrs L Whittle know?

The New Marriage Allowance

The new Marriage Allowance is set to come into force on 6 Apr 2015 when the new tax year starts. It was announced in last year’s Budget when David Cameron and George Osborne made a big deal about it . . .

Prime Minister David Cameron: “I made a clear commitment to the British people that I would recognise marriage in the tax system.”
Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne: “Our new Marriage Allowance means saving £212 on your tax bill couldn’t be simpler or more straightforward.”

However, it is not as simple as that. My wife and I have been married a long time and we will not save a single penny, because the new Marriage Allowance does not apply to two spouses who are both taxpayers. You have to have one spouse with income of less than £10,600 in order to benefit That’s the tax threshold for 2015/16 and so this new allowance only works when there is one spouse who is not a taxpayer.

In this context, marriage includes all of the recent forms of civil partnership and such like.

The rule applies to income as a whole, not just “earnings” so you have to take into account wages and interest received and rent received and all manner of income. And there is another, less trumpeted, rule which says “if the higher income spouse is a higher rate taxpayer, the allowance is not available” so some of you can stop reading now!

If you are in a situation with one spouse with income of less than £9,540 and the other with income of more than £11,660 (but less than £42,385) then you will get the maximum benefit, and you need to claim the allowance. I don’t think there are any clients on my books with that precise set of circumstances, but please do correct me if I’m wrong.

In the right circumstances the lower income spouse can elect to transfer up to 10% of the annual personal allowance to the higher income spouse. That’s a maximum of £1,060 for 2015/16. Then, if the other spouse has sufficient taxable income with repayable tax credits (note that dividend income whilst taxable, does not have repayable tax credits) then the higher income spouse stands to gain £212 (that’s 1,060 x 20%).

Claims can be made online https://www.gov.uk/marriage-allowance

The social impact of this is what the Government wants to shout about. It will put £4.08 per week into the pocket of a few poorer couples in the UK. The cost of the tax saving measure is small and the percentage of UK taxpayers who will benefit is small. However, with an election coming up, you can be sure that the Government will be repeating this, a lot!

Call me a cynic, but David Cameron’s and George Osborne’s words (above) do not “recognise marriage” across the board and they do not make UK taxation “simpler or more straightforward”. It just means that accountants have to ask more personal questions in order to complete your Self Assessment tax returns. More work for accountants and (wishful thinking) higher fees for us? Maybe I should be grateful?

Dividend Vouchers

The retained profits generated by UK companies of all sizes can be distributed to shareholders. For professional workers (such as contractors, consultants, and freelancers), dividends make up the bulk of income drawn down from small limited companies.

If a limited company has made a profit, it is free to distribute these funds to its shareholders. This is the money the company has remaining after paying all business expenses and liabilities, plus any outstanding taxes (such as Corporation Tax and VAT). Even if the year end has not yet been reached, quarterly dividends can be paid on account of the profit which the company anticipates it will make.

‘Retained profit’ may have been accumulated over a period of time, and any excess profits not distributed as dividends simply remain in the company’s bank account. If you choose to distribute all of the available profit then it is likely that you have 80% of the company profits in your hands, whilst the company keeps 20% as a tax reserve.That’s how it looks from the company’s point of view.

As there is very little logic in tax law, your net dividend (prior to 6 Apr 2016) is deemed to have a 10% notional tax credit attaching to it. From an individual point of view, your net dividend is therefore 90% of some notional gross figure. These are the figures shown on the dividend voucher and these are the figures that go into a personal tax return (up to 5 Apr 2016).

Working via a limited company is a tax efficient way to operate, as National Insurance Contributions (NICs) are not payable on company dividends, whereas they are payable on salaried income.

Dividends must be distributed according to the percentage of company shares owned by each shareholder, i.e. if you own half the company’s shares, you will receive 50% of each dividend distribution.

In order to check how we calculate the dividend figure, our clients are provided with a 488120 ledgers report each quarter. Under the heading Creditor – YourName you can see how we have matched any periodic drawings to the quarterly dividends. This section of the 488120 report may also show idiosyncratic figures, adjusting your dividend for any personal expenditure made on behalf of an individual from a company bank account.