64000 notifications were issued where HMRC thought that information wasn't disclosed. Initialy a lot of people replied back, with in the region of 45,000 disclosures. HMRC were therefore on the right track but this wasn't it, nothing hqad been disclosed at this stage. With the level of penalty being low a lot of people took there chances and amazingly HMRC only checked 5000 sample cases.
Of course they were happy with this because it cost them £6.5m to implement the whole action and they were able to recover £400m in additional tax revenue.
What does that mean?
They will go after more.....So far 30 banks have now been contacted including the bank of cyprus and bank of india, another 500 insitutions are expected to be included this time. So HMRC simply want to capitalise and they are desperate to do that.
Our advice would be to steer clear of things that create an unnecessary risk for you. If it all sounds to good to be true then it almost certainly is. Please bear this in mind when considering any type of offshore scheme or investment as the penalties can be anything from 10% - 100% of the capital or benefit gained...
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( 3 / 119 )There are two types of Tax Credits - Child tax credit and Working Tax credit.
The amount of tax credit depends on a family’s circumstances and level of income. Couples with a child of age less than 16 and income of up to £50,000 are eligible for £545 and with a new born baby (less than 12 months) for £1090.
This should not be confused with child benefit which is available to everyone. Also unlike any other benefit and other tax credits, Child and working tax credit is given to individuals/couples free of any tax implication.
Being a small business owner you are able to plan your personal earning in any tax year, sometimes good planning ahead can allow you to take appropriate advantage of such Government offerings. Normally income received in a previous year is used to check if the tax credit is available but by good tax planning we can make a protective claim even if at the start of the year your total income reduced your entitlement to Nil.
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( 3.1 / 134 )If you receive perks from your employer, these are usually included in your tax code number.
How do you know whether anything has been included?
If your tax code is less than 647 (followed by a letter), then your tax free allowances have been reduced for some reason.
So, if you're not receiving those perks anymore, then you need to make sure that the taxman knows and adjusts your tax code.
Other reductions can be because of bank or building society interest that you receive.
For most people it isn't worth the taxman sending them a tax return annually to collect any tax that may be due on small amounts of bank interest.So instead he decides to include a figure in your tax code to collect the extra tax.
This mainly applies to those who pay tax at the higher rate of 40%.
However, as we all know, interest rates have plummeted but the taxman ignores that and assumes that you will still be getting the same level as in previous years....funny how they have this in their favour!
The result? You'll pay too much tax.
Pensioners have got a real problem as they may get pensions from various sources and so will have several tax codes.
It can be nightmare sorting them out to make sure that the correct tax is paid. PAYE is supposed to ensure that everyone pays the correct tax, but the fact that 20 million cases are wrong is a frightening figure.
And that figure has increased from 2008 when the figures were last reported.
As everyone has to tighten their belts in the economic downturn, make sure that you pay only the tax you should.
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( 3 / 125 )The amazing growth of other related sites such as Facebook and Twitter appear to have killed off an early entry to the market in Friends Reunited. ITV will take a huge loss of around £90 million on the sale. Does this signal the start of the end of these type of sites? Or is it the dawn of a new era I wonder?
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( 2.9 / 126 )It would be good to hear from anyone who thinks that the 50% tax rate for high earners, is fair. I am perplexed to try and get my head round how the Government think that this will stimulate the economy because all the Entrepreneurs I know are not happy with this.
My belief is that this stance will simply drive quality skills away from the UK, or hamper businesses so heavily because they have to pay an additional 10% in wages to cover the tax burden for the employees.
Would it not be a better idea for the MP's to put all their expenses refunds into a pot; stop claiming for things that are not allowed; then start to simply live on the high wages they get?
From that I am sure that we could defer the tax increases for a while!
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