Archived SME tax news

The Low Incomes Tax Reform Group (LITRG) welcomes HMRC’s recent announcement of £2 million a year of grants to be given over the next four years to voluntary sector bodies. 

What has become of HMRC's ideas of tackling what was claimed as "False self-employment" in the construction industry?

HMRC has launched a new consultation: “Establishing the future relationship between the tax agent community and HMRC”.

Nichola Ross Martin writes:

I have been advising firms of accountants and tax advisers for just over 20 years. The problems are not always the same but this is a summary of recent queries:

Goodwill

Misunderstanding of the rules in respect of aquiring goodwill before 1 April 2002 from a related party.

Challenge to the write off of goodwill (cases where goodwill is written off in less than 5 years) 

HMRC challenge to overvalued goodwill: some of the cases the challenge only amounts to an adjustment of a few £thousand - seems hardly worth the bother.

Associated companies

Misunderstanding the rules on:

Loan creditors

This comes up very frequently but it greatly depends on the balance sheet and size of loan creditor. Where you have a large loan creditor and the loan creditor is a close company or an individual then the chances are that the loan creditor will be entitled to a greater share of the company's assets on winding up compared to anyone else (this is because it will be repaid out of the company's assets).

Irreducible groups

Where a company is under the control of two or more persons then it will be associated with any other company under the control of those persons.

An item from the Chartered Institute of Taxation's (CIOT) website provides a link to HMRC's guidance on dealing with tax agents.

Nichola Ross Martin writes: in a recent magazine article I wrote on Associated Companies an example was misattributed to HMRC. This item is to clear matters up for any readers of that magazine.

HMRC has announced that they will not be updating their Corporation Tax software for Budget changes until October 2011, this may affect online filing of Company Tax Returns for those who wish to file returns promptly.

HM Treasury has opened Consultation on the abolition of 36 tax reliefs.  

Agent Account Managers (AAMs) have been introduced nationally in order to assist and support tax agents.