Skip to content
01844 274808 website@harmonea.co.uk

Author: Alison Harrison

IR35

Posted on by Alison Harrison

The IR35 legislation is aimed at what HMRC calls “disguised employees”. These are individuals who attempt to use an intermediary, usually their own limited company (a “personal service company”) to avoid paying tax.  Before the IR35 legislation closed the loophole in the law, people could set up a limited company and then hire out their services in that company’s name to do the same job as an employee.  Working through a company significantly reduced their tax bills, as well as the employer’s national insurance bill of the “client” who would otherwise have been their employer.

The IR35 legislation aims to prevent this form of tax avoidance by differentiating between individuals who operate as genuine contractors, and those who work as independent entities but with the working conditions of employees.  HMRC can launch IR35 enquiries and inspect contracts and arrangements, and if they decide that a self-employed contractor is “inside IR35” i.e. a “disguised employee”, they can require payment of backdated tax, national insurance, interest and possibly a penalty.  It’s therefore essential that self-employed contractors operating through limited companies are aware of this and check their contracts carefully to ensure compliance with the IR35 rules, or seek help to do this.

If you are concerned about IR35, you can talk to us.

Facebooktwitterredditlinkedinmail

Payroll service

Posted on by Alison Harrison

We can run your payroll for you and save you the worry of meeting HMRC’s strict compliance rules and missing important deadlines. When we run your payroll, whether it is weekly, monthly or 4 weekly we will email you the following documents;

  • Payslips either to you or direct to your employees
  • Payroll journal showing all deductions and additions,
  • Information regarding PAYE payable for that period and details of where to pay it
  • Any pension payments for that period

Our fees for payroll from April 2019 are as follows;

Employees and new scheme

  • To set up a payroll scheme £50 + VAT
  • To run a new payroll scheme for up to 2 employees £10 + VAT a month
  • To run a payroll scheme for up to 4 employees £20 + VAT a month
  • To run a payroll scheme for up to 4 employees with pension administration £40 + VAT a month
  • For payroll schemes with over 4 employees – details on request
  • For a new employee £50 + VAT
  • For a leaver £50 + VAT
  • For a mid-year start £50 + VAT
  • To close a scheme £50 + VAT
  • To opt a company out of auto enrolment £50 + VAT
  • P11D £75 + VAT
  • Year end £50 + VAT

 

Auto-enrolment for setting up new scheme

  • For 1 or 2 directors £100 + VAT
  • Between 3 and 10 people £250 + VAT
  • 10 or more people £500 + VAT
Facebooktwitterredditlinkedinmail

Construction Industry Scheme

Posted on by Alison Harrison
CIS (Construction Industry Scheme)

You must tell HM Revenue and Customs each month about payments you’ve made to subcontractors through your monthly return.

You need to send your monthly returns or submit them online to HM Revenue and Customs by the 19th of every month following the last tax month.

You must pay HM Revenue and Customs every month by the 22nd (or the 19th if you’re paying by post). You may be charged interest and penalties if you pay late.

Pay CIS deductions to HMRC in the same way as PAYE and National Insurance payments.

Facebooktwitterredditlinkedinmail

Your Dividend Questions answered

Posted on by Alison Harrison

Types of shares

When a company is incorporated at Companies House, it must have at least one share.  Most commonly shares are in £1 increments although this is not compulsory.  One penny, 25p, 50p and £5 per share are not unusual.  Ordinary A shares come with full voting rights.  Not all shares carry voting rights.  Typically, A shares do and the others don’t.  ‘Alphabet shares’ can be issued and it is most usual to have A shares for the directors and B shares for example, to the spouses, partners, children or employees.  Corporate entities can also be shareholders.  It is acceptable for one individual to hold more than one class of share in a company.

 

Who can be a shareholder?

If you are over the age of 16, you can be a shareholder.  You do not need to be a director to be a shareholder, nor do you need to be a shareholder if you are a director.

 

Who is entitled to receive dividends?

If you are a shareholder of a limited company and the company declares a valid dividend, you are entitled to receive a dividend should a dividend be issued to your class of share.  Just because you are a shareholder, it does not guarantee you will receive a dividend. 

 

How often can dividends be issued?

A company can only pay a dividend if it has distributable reserves.  This means it has made a profit after tax has been deducted.  Dividends can be taken at any time but it is advised to take no more frequently than quarterly.  Quarterly, half yearly or annually are all acceptable.  Doing so more frequently may be construed as salary by HMRC and be liable to personal income tax and national insurance at the prevailing rates.  Issuing a dividend monthly for £1200 and a salary of £987 is not realistic.  Profits rise and fall from month to month.  In the example below a company makes modest profits and every quarter calculates how much can be extracted in dividends.  You will see that the profits rise and fall over the course of the year and in this example, a total of £3807 can be taken in dividends over the course of the year.

 

 

Jun-

17

Jul-

17

Aug-17

Sep-17

Oct-

17

Nov-17

Dec-17

Jan-

18

Feb-18

Mar-18

Apr-

18

May-18

Annual figs

SALES

£3,000

£3,250

£1,200

£1,750

£2,400

£2,500

£1,200

£1,750

£4,000

£2,700

£2,550

£2,700

£29,000

COST OF SALES

£50

£50

£50

£50

£50

£50

£50

£50

£50

£50

£50

£50

£600

GROSS PROFIT

£2,950

£3,200

£1,150

£1,700

£2,350

£2,450

£1,150

£1,700

£3,950

£2,650

£2,500

£2,650

£28,400

EXPENSES

£2,000

£2,500

£1,200

£2,000

£2,000

£2,000

£2,000

£2,000

£2,000

£2,000

£2,000

£2,000

£23,700

NET PROFIT

£950

£700

£50

£300

£350

£450

£850

£300

£1,950

£650

£500

£650

£4,700

CT @ 19%

£181

£133

£10

£57

£67

£86

£162

£57

£371

£124

£95

£124

£893

PROFIT AFTER TAX

£770

£567

£41

£243

£284

£365

£689

£243

£1,580

£527

£405

£527

£3,807

AMOUNT AVAILABLE AS DIVIDEND

    

£1,296

    

£405

    

£648

    

£1,458

£3,807

 

Put simply, dividends are profit (sales minus expenses) after tax provision (19%) calculated on a quarterly basis.  It is not necessary to issue a dividend if you don’t want to but if you do, the guidance in this notice should be used.

What is the process for declaring a dividend?

The bookkeeper/business owner prepares the management accounts which shows CT provision and calculates the dividends available for distribution.  A meeting is held and it is agreed what dividends will be issued.  Take the example above.  In Q1 a profit of £1296 was available.  Let us say there are 3 classes of share.

John holds 1 A share and 1 C share

Janet holds 1 B share

Susan holds 1 D share

 

At the meeting, it is agreed to issue 100% of the profits equally between the 4 classes of share

 

25% of £1296 is £324 per share category.

 

In this example, John gets £648 and Janet and Susan each get £324.  Minutes and dividend vouchers need to be issued to John, Janet and Susan each time a dividend is issued.

 

Let us suppose in Q2, the dividend is only issued to the B share holder.  100% of the dividend (£405) goes to Janet.

 

John could use any combination he wants to distribute the dividends.

 

 

What is the tax implication on dividends?

For the year ending 5/4/18, each shareholder is entitled to receive £5000 tax free in dividends.  For the year ending 5/4/19, each shareholder is entitled to receive £2000 tax free.  Each shareholder is required to submit a personal tax return declaring their dividend income.  Dividends over the initial tax free allowance are taxed at 7.5% up to £34,500, the dividends are taxed at 32.5% with no national insurance contributions currently required.

 

What would you advise?

Doing your bookkeeping on a regular basis and producing and acting upon management accounts is crucial.  With MTD (Making Tax Digital) coming in in April 2019, it will be necessary for companies to submit their accounts on a quarterly basis to HMRC.  By doing your bookkeeping regularly, you will ease the pain of having to do this.   If you need more help or advice concerning dividends or bookkeeping, please contact us for an exploratory meeting.

Facebooktwitterredditlinkedinmail

All you need to know about Directors Loan Accounts  

Posted on by Alison Harrison

A director’s loan account is simply a mechanism for recording transactions between the director and the company.  In a family or personal company situation, transactions between the director and the company are commonplace.  The director may lend money to the company or borrow from it, the director’s behalf and salary or dividend payments may be credited to the account.  However, there are tax consequences if the account is overdrawn at the year end and remains so at the corporation tax due date.

One of the main benefits that may be available to a director of a personal or family company is the ability to borrow easily and cheaply, assuming that the company has the funds available.  The rules make it possible for the director to borrow up to £10,000 for up to 21 months without any tax consequences.  If the amount exceeds £10,000 – even for as little as one day – there will be a benefit in kind charge to pay on the loan.  However, this is likely to be significantly cheaper than the cost of a commercial loan, and will not entail the costs and restrictions inherent in obtaining a commercial loan.  If the directors loan account is overdrawn at the end of the accounting period and remains overdrawn at the time at which the corporation tax for the period is due nine months and one day after the year end, the company is required to pay a tax charge on the outstanding loan balance (a ‘section 455’ charge).  The charge is 32.5% of the outstanding loan balance and is payable with the corporation tax for the period.  The rate of tax is the same as the higher rate of tax on dividends.

The section 455 tax can be avoided if any overdrawn loan account balance is cleared before the corporation tax due date.  However, this will not always be the most tax-efficient option as depending on the route taken to clear the debt, the tax payable may be more than the section 455 tax.  Further, the section 455 tax is repaid if the debt is cleared at a later date, with the repayment being due nine months and one day from the end of the accounting period in which it was cleared.  This paves the way for paying the section 455 tax initially, clearing the loan at a later date when this can be done tax effectively and reclaiming the section 455 tax.  If the director has sufficient funds to clear the debt, this will be beneficial from a tax perspective as it will prevent a section 455 charge from arising without triggering tax liabilities on the director.  Whether it is worthwhile to pay the director a bonus or a dividend payment to clear the loan account will depend on the director’s personal circumstances – if this can be done tax-free or at a low rate of tax, it may be preferable to paying the section 455 charge.  However, if the taxpayer is a higher or additional rate taxpayer, paying the section 455 tax will be the cheaper option.  Remember, not only will the bonus or dividend need to be sufficient to clear the debt, it will also need to cover any associated tax and National Insurance.

Facebooktwitterredditlinkedinmail

Are you giving off the right impression?

Posted on by Alison Harrison

I recently saw a leaflet for something I could be have been interested in.  At the point of taking the next step I looked for an email address to email to arrange a meeting to discuss their offering.  My impression of this business suddenly did a nose dive on the professionability scale. They had a hotmail email account. Was this a part time business? Another person involved in this business had an email address sexysuzy@……. For the cost of a domain running at around £6 for 2 years, why had they not grabbed it?

I then saw that they had a website with the business domain so why were they not using the domain with an associated email address? This person had a good website so I proceeded to email.

Not getting a reply I telephoned the number on the website but it went to the home phone answerphone. Had I got the wrong number?

It took three weeks for an email reply which was full of apology. Was this person taking their business seriously? Could they cope with the work I was proposing to give them?

We met up and he gave me his business card. Oh dear! I think it was a DIY job from Staples and was completely mismatched to the website. It was poorly thought out, poorly printed and was misaligned. It gave incomplete information and contained spelling mistakes.

This business was giving out all the wrong messages before we had had the opportunity to work together.

The meeting went well but the jury is still out as to whether to use him. I have my doubts.

What is the point of all this? This person could have made a much stronger impact with so little effort.

Had he had a consistent brand image – domain, logo, standard of presentation, my impression would have been very different.

Had the telephone been answered by a human or by a professional answerphone, my impression would have been very different.

Had the initial response been earlier and the final proposal sooner after the meeting, my impression would have been very different

By the time we got to the end of the sale process, I had lost confidence in this person which is such a shame. Time will tell if I made the right decision.

Facebooktwitterredditlinkedinmail

When is the Self Assessment Deadline?

Posted on by Alison Harrison

You have until 11.59pm on 31st January 2024 to submit your online self assessment tax return for the 2022/23 tax year, which ended on 5th April 2022, to HMRC. This is also the deadline to pay any tax due. If you miss the deadline you will be fined £100. This applies even if you don’t owe any tax or are due a refund!

You’ll need to submit a tax return if, in the last tax year:

  • you were self-employed
  • you got £2,500 or more in untaxed income, eg from renting out a property or savings and investments
  • your savings or investment income was £10,000 or more before tax
  • you made profits from selling things like shares, a second home or other chargeable assets and need to pay Capital Gains Tax
  • you were a company director – unless it was for a non-profit organisation (eg a charity) and you didn’t get any pay or benefits, like a company car
  • your income (or your partner’s) was over £50,000 and one of you claimed Child Benefit
  • you had income from abroad that you needed to pay tax on
  • you lived abroad and had a UK income
  • you got dividends from shares and you’re a higher or additional rate taxpayer – but if you don’t need to send a return for any other reason, contact the helpline instead
  • your income was over £100,000
  • you were a trustee of a trust or registered pension scheme

Harmonea Ltd can submit your tax return for you but don’t leave it to the last minute!Facebooktwitterredditlinkedinmail