A useful new web tool has emerged, a little late in the game, in a joint effort from two government departments. In early 2023, HMRC and the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) found they were unable to cope with the volume generated by a 5 April cut-off date that...
The fees for obtaining probate in England and Wales have increased. The fee charged to obtain probate in England and Wales has been increased from £273 to £300 (10%) and for confirmation in Scotland, which has a sliding scale by 2%. Northern Ireland revised its...
With allowances frozen or cut, you may have underpaid tax for 2023/24. Your tax position may have changed for the last year without you really noticing. Consider the following: *£1,000 for basic and nil rate taxpayers, £500 for higher rate taxpayers, and nil for...
Tax is too complicated… say the legislators A parliamentary committee has been examining efforts to simplify tax, but progress is still a long way off. Among other things, last year’s ill-fated ‘mini-Budget’ was notable for the swiftness with which Jeremy Hunt...
The Chancellor’s national insurance contribution (NICs) ‘giveaway’ is no match for his income tax ‘takeaway’. The central surprise in Jeremy Hunt’s second Autumn Statement was a major reduction in NICs. • For employees From 6 January 2024, the main class 1...
One of the few surprises in the Spring Budget was the change affecting how child benefit is taxed for higher earners. The high income child benefit charge (HICBC or ‘hicbic’) was introduced in January 2013 to reduce child benefit payments for higher earners. It was...
New calculations issued alongside the Spring Budget show just how higher rate taxpaying status is becoming ever more common. The Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) received plenty of attention leading up to the Budget. It was widely portrayed in the media as the...
What was almost certainly the last Budget before the election was a serving of the widely expected, sprinkled with a handful of small surprises. The Chancellor of the Exchequer, Jeremy Hunt, delivered the Spring Budget 2024 on 6 March. As anticipated, it was a typical...
This new tax year starting on 6 April brings a range of changes that could affect your financial planning. The start of the new tax year will see many allowances and tax bands frozen once again. In reality these freezes are tax increases as the government has...
New data on marriage and civil partnerships shows a significant threshold has been crossed. ‘Population estimates by marital status and living arrangements, England and Wales: 2022’, sounds like a rather esoteric piece of academic output from the Office for National...
The media storm surrounding HMRC taxing eBay and other online sellers from the start of 2024 was, in fact, itself counterfeit goods. A crop of stories across social and traditional media swirled across the start of the new year about HMRC cracking down on ‘side...
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