This corker (excuse the pun) of a tax loophole has just come to my attention. The new “trivial benefits exemption” introduced earlier this year means that, as a director of a limited company, you can purchase multi bottles of wine (costing less than £50 each) up to a maximum of £300 of wine in any one year. Yes – HMRC have introduced a tax loophole allowing … [Read more...]
How to file a Confirmation Statement Video
As of 30 June 2016 the Confirmation Statement replaces the Annual Return. If you own a limited company you need to file a Confirmation Statement at least once a year – even if your company is dormant. There are serious consequences for not doing this including the risk that the company could be struck off. The Confirmation Statement confirms that all of the information … [Read more...]
How to deal with out of pocket expenses
On a day-to-day basis you are likely to incur some out of pocket expenses such as parking charges, business mileage, train fares, stationery and so on. These costs can be claimed back from the limited company. The best way to deal with these is to use the company credit or debit card; that way the cost will automatically be picked up by the company and there will be … [Read more...]
How to pay your corporation tax
Your Reference To be able to pay your corporation tax you'll need your 17-character Corporation Tax payslip reference for the accounting period you're paying. The reference number will be on the pay slip sent to the company by HMRC or you can find it on the company's HMRC online account - 'View account' then 'Accounting period'. HMRC's systems are not intelligent enough … [Read more...]
Organising your Limited Company Costs and Expenses
When you operate a Limited Company your mindset needs to shift to thinking of the Limited Company as something completely separate to you; it is a separate legal entity recognised in law. In reality this means that you must not treat the Limited Company's bank account as your own; so you need to get organised. Here's how .... Business bank account If you operate as a … [Read more...]
When does my hobby become a business?
Isn't it great when your hobby and something that you love doing starts to earn you some money. But with the profit comes a stack of officialdom that running a business entails. So how do you know when you have moved into actually running a business? Unfortunately there's no precise definition of what constitutes a business and there's no amount or allowance that you … [Read more...]
The IR35 Realities
IR35 is always a hot topic generating a lot of discussion and opinion. It has been around for 15 years with an enormous amount of history but still the precise definition of IR35 is woolly at best with the number of investigations opened by HMRC resulting in a “win” still being very small as a percentage of the total number opened. So how come common sense hasn’t prevailed and … [Read more...]
Auto Enrolment Exemption for One Man Band Limited Companies
This ten minute presentation from the Pensions Regulator is well worth a view if you are a “one man band” limited company (still haven’t found a non sexist term for that) as it explains the criteria you need to meet to claim your exemption from auto enrolment plus how to tell the Pensions Regulator that you are exempt so that you do not incur any fines for non compliance. View … [Read more...]