The Chancellor delivered his Budget speech on 3 March, with an attempt to balance the need to continue providing support to those affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, whilst raising taxes to meet the substantial costs that have been incurred in doing so. There were a number of measures announced that will be of interest to charities, including confirmation that the Coronavirus Jo ...

Individuals who previously made an election to stop receiving child benefit due to the high income child benefit charge (HICBC) may wish to consider revoking the election in order to restart their claim, if they feel that their income is likely to drop in the current climate below the HICBC upper income threshold of £60,000. The child benefit, or a proportion thereon, may need ...

For over a year now we have been working under exceptional circumstances as the country battles with the COVID-19 pandemic. The success of the UK’s vaccination programme though has contributed to the government’s roadmap for coming out of lockdown and returning to a more normal state, although it must be stressed that the situation is a fluid one and these plans are subject to ...

The UK government has unveiled a £20 million Brexit support package to help small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) with changes to customs and tax rules when trading with the EU. The SME Brexit Support Fund aims to help businesses prepare for the implementation of further import controls which come into force later this year. Businesses who trade only with the EU and are t ...

The government has published over 30 updates, consultations and documents on the UK's first ever Tax Day. The announcements, which would traditionally be published at Budget, have been released later to allow for scrutiny from stakeholders. It was announced that HMRC will tighten rules to force holiday let landlords to prove they have made a realistic effort to rent propertie ...

The government is to extend business rates relief with a £1.5 billion fund targeted at those businesses unable to benefit from the current COVID-19 support. Retail, hospitality and leisure businesses have not been paying any rates during the pandemic, as part of a 15 month-long relief which runs to the end of June this year. However, many businesses ineligible for reliefs hav ...

HMRC has published a briefing on its approach to the changes to off-payroll working rules, commonly known as IR35, which will be introduced on 6 April 2021. Reiterating its advice from last year, HMRC has confirmed that it will not issue penalties for inaccuracies in the first 12 months of the regime, unless there is evidence of deliberate non-compliance. HMRC also confirmed ...

This new piece of legislation which received Royal Assent on 25 June 2020 and the provisions it contains provide an extension to the deadline for filing accounts and certain other documents at Companies House. As well as these measures the Act also included a temporary move allowing greater flexibility for the holding of company meetings that would be relevant for those charit ...

In January this year legislation came into force to incorporate the EU’s Fifth Money laundering Directive into UK law, and expanded the scope of the Trust Registration Service (TRS) by requiring all UK some non-EU resident express trusts to register with the service. At the time it was thought that charitable trusts would fall within this definition and would be required to reg ...

The Budget announcements confirmed that the fourth SEISS grant will be set at 80% of 3 months’ average trading profits, paid out in a single instalment, capped at £7,500. The fourth grant will take into account 2019/20 tax returns and will be open to those taxpayers who became self-employed during the 2019/20 tax year. The previous eligibility criteria remains unchanged. Eligi ...