The end of the tax year is almost upon us and it is a good time to review your tax position. 

Also, make sure you are prepared for GDPR which comes into effect on 25 May 2018 and Making Tax Digital which commences in April 2019 for VAT.

Preparation and planning are very important and we are here to help you, so please get in touch.

David Miller, Director

Now is a good time to start planning your tax affairs before the end of the tax year on 5th April. 

An obvious tax planning point would be to maximise your ISA allowances for the 2017/18 tax year (currently £20,000 each). Read more

At Johnston Smillie we are always looking at ways we can work smarter and by partnering with Pensionsync this has enabled us to enhance our Auto Enrolment pension management.  Pensionsync is a specialist Auto Enrolment data integration platform that allows us to automatically deliver data to and from multiple pension providers. Read more

The top 5 things ALL employers should know about re-enrolment.

Automatic re-enrolment is the process where all employers must re-enrol certain employees into an auto enrolment compliant pension scheme, if they are not already members of one.   Read more

Pension Freedoms are now well established but as ever, the Treasury monitor the economic impact of cash released into the economy using data obtained from HMRC.

Too much cash released could prompt regulatory or government intervention. 

Read more

 

In one of our earlier blogs, Do you know what GDPR is?, we outlined the implications of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) which takes effect on 25 May 2018.

The impact of GDPR on a charity is potentially more wide-ranging than for a typical commercial organisation, but the extent of the impact depends very much on the activities undertaken by the charity in question. 

Read more

Making Tax Digital (MTD) for VAT is scheduled to start in April 2019 and VAT registered businesses will need to submit their VAT information to HMRC digitally.  This will replace the current VAT Return. 

Read more
 

If you haven’t set up your business on cloud accounting software, you may be feeling overwhelmed and we can’t blame you.

After all, there are adverts for Xero, QuickBooks online, Sage one and Free Agent all over the TV, radio and internet. You’ve probably heard your friends talk about their new QuickBooks software or the latest Sage one add on. Read more

Unfortunately, no one is immune from an HMRC enquiry no matter how much care you as a taxpayer, or we, as your advisers, take with your personal and business tax affairs.  Tax enquiries can be very time consuming and expensive to deal with – even if HMRC have made a mistake in opening the enquiry in the first place. This is why we offer our clients a tax investigation service each year.  

Read more

If you are new to contracting, or returning after a break, here is a summary of the main taxes you can expect to pay;

Corporation Tax

If you operate through a Limited company corporation tax will be due on the company’s profits.  Read more

For a number of years there has been a generous 100% tax break for businesses that install energy saving technology in their premises. This is in addition to the £200,000 annual investment allowance for plant and machinery. Read more

As the saying goes “Fail to plan – Plan to fail”

As your company year-end is on the horizon, planning should be up there with those “must do” tasks.

The 3 options below are good ways to reduce your company’s corporation tax liability, effectively keeping cash in the bank of the company rather than the tax man’s.          Read more

Congratulations to Jamie Edwards from our Tax department who recently passed his Personal Tax Advisory exam and is now well on the way to attaining his CTA professional qualification.

David Legge and Gordon Ferguson have been Freeagent accredited and can now offer support on various Cloud software packages.  

Scott McInnes,  David Legge and Gordon Ferguson have completed the Xero Migration Certification.

The information in this newsletter provides only an overview of legislation in force at the date of publication and no action should be taken without consulting the detailed legislation or seeking professional advice.  Therefore no responsibility for loss occasioned by any person acting or refraining from action as a result of the material contained in this newsletter can be accepted by the firm.