July 31st Deadline – Self Assessment Payments

There’s just over one month remaining before the deadline for making the 2nd payment on account for the 15/16 self assessment tax year.

HMRC is currently issuing letters detailing the payment required, however if you are not sure of your personal situation here are a few things you can do:

• Check your email from us regarding your self assessment calculation for 14/15.  The subject is “Draft tax return for review”.
• Review your correspondence from HMRC regarding your self assessment tax statement.
• Sign up for HMRC online.  A great way to track your personal tax liabilities.
• Contact support @ tempo if you require us to review your position.

Generally speaking you would only have a payment on account to make if you had a self assessment tax bill of over £1,000 for the 14/15 tax year.

Keeping your personal Director’s address private

Company directors must have a contact address recorded with Companies House.

Recent changes to Companies House’s digital services (including their website) means that this address is much more accessible for anyone to view or use the details.

Tempo has therefore recently launched an optional director’s “Service Address” facility available to our clients.   This means that your personal address does not appear on Companies House’s new publicly available records.  Your actual address is still recorded with Companies House but it’s not shown publicly.

The service address used is “Wesley Offices, 74 Silver Street, Nailsea, BS48 2DS”.

The fee for this service (including the forwarding of mail by email) is £30+VAT per year or £2.50+VAT per month.

Please contact support@tempoaccounting.com to activate this service.

Please note that this is not to be confused with a company’s Registered Office Address.

Dividend Tax Increase In April

The end of the tax year is in sight so now is an appropriate time to be reminded of the changes to the way dividends are taxed come April 6th 2016:

In summary, from April 6th 2016, tax payers will be given a new £5,000 tax free allowance on dividend income. Any dividends received beyond that limit will be charged at:

• 7.5% for basic rate taxpayers (previously 0%)
• 32.5% for higher rate taxpayers (previously 25%)

This tax is paid personally using the self-assessment system.

Depending on your plans for any reserved company profits you may consider withdrawing a dividend before the end of the current tax year.

Other effective ways to mitigate this additional tax include:

• Pay into corporate pension fund
• Build a balance in the company account and take the funds as a capital gain on closure.
• Consider options such as limited company owned buy to let properties

 

[Updated] Pension tax relief reduction. Deadline 16th March.

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March 7th Update:  The changes highlighted below have been dropped by George Osborne – this will come as a relief to high earners looking to make pension contributions in the near future.

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The government has been reviewing pension tax relief and changes are suspected to be imminent.

It is predicted (but not confirmed) that the chancellor will make an announcement on the 16th March 2016 which will immediately reduce the amount of higher rate tax relief given to future pension contributions.

In short, if you are a higher rate tax payer and likely to be making a pension contribution soon then you may consider finalising this before the 16th March.

Conversely, if you are a standard rate tax payer and planning on making a pension contribution then you may consider waiting until after the announcement.  The relief given to standard rate tax payers is likely to increase.

Hargreaves Landsdown has a clear summary of the effects on their website:

http://www.hl.co.uk/pensions/important-rule-changes-in-2016

Merry Christmas & Opening Hours

Firstly, thank you to all of our clients for choosing Tempo during 2015.

We wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

 

Opening Hours

As always, we make it as easy as possible for our team to spend time with their families over Christmas and the New Year.  As such, we operate a reduced level of telephone support from 24th Dec – 4th Jan.   Apologies if you call and find you are greeted by an answering machine!  Please leave a message for any urgent queries.