Accountancy Age A HAMPSHIRE PLUMBER has been found guilty of tax evasion totalling some £112,000 over a 14-year period. Peter Mack, 59, of Ringwood set up a freelance plumbing business in 1997, but never registered his earning with HM Revenue & Customs. Enquiries made by HMRC found Mack had evaded approximately £88,000 in income tax and VAT plus interest, pushing the total up to £112,000. He was arrested at his home...
Accountancy Age THE INCOMING PRESIDENT of the Chartered Institute of Taxation has expressed concerns over tax comparisons between Greece and the UK in both the media and public arena. Speaking at CIoT's annual general meeting in Westminster as he succeeds Anthony Thomas, Patrick Stevens said the tax system in Britain is far from broken and allowing the impression to take hold that it was dangerous. Drawing a contrast between the British and Greek...
Accountancy Age ONCE AND FOR ALL it has been proved that TS has a brilliant memory. Auf Wiedersehen Pet and Benidorm star Tim Healy has been in the tax pages for winning a tribunal over expenses that he claimed against his tax bill. This sent TS's synapses into overdrive. Yes, it was the very same actor who'd been provided voiceover work by the taxman back in 2005, where he encouraged brickies, labourers and...
Accountancy Age THE RISING NUMBER of green cars and other vehicles will leave a £13bn shortfall in motoring taxes by the end of the next decade, despite an expected 44% rise in traffic. The predictions were made by the Institute for Fiscal Studies, an independent think tank, and based its analysis on the government's own forecasts, showing that by 2029, fuel duty will contribute 1.1% GDP, compared with 1.7% today. Fuel excise duty will fall...
Accountancy Age APPROXIMATELY 3.5m people are due to be notified they have paid too much tax due further calculations by the taxman, which will see them receive an average of £379. A further 1.6m people will receive letters saying they have underpaid their taxes next week, with £537 due to be picked up by HM Revenue & Customs. This will be collected primarily by adjusting employees' tax codes to compensate, seeing them take...
Accountancy Age IT WAS HOPED that when HM Revenue & Customs released guidelines on when contractors' tax rules should be applied, that the issue could be laid to rest and we would all know where we stand on the status of workers. Alas, it was not to be, and despite HMRC's efforts to provide guidelines on IR35 this week, many parties' concerns remain unsatisfied. Many - including small business representatives invited by the...
Accountancy Age HMRC HAS CONFIRMED that more than 310 employers are scheduled to join its real time information PAYE pilot. The RTI pilot was launched in early April with ten employers. The aim of the project is to have employers updating their PAYE records as and when changes occur, rather than once at the end of every tax year, Accountancy Age's sister publication WSB reports. So far HMRC has...
Accountancy Age THE SERIES OF TESTS and scenarios released by HM Revenue & Customs "fails to take into account key elements of advice" provided by small business representatives invited by the Treasury forum to discuss the issue. HMRC "had missed an opportunity to bring clarity, transparency and fairness in dealing with IR35", stated the group, which included the PCG, Recruitment and Employment Confederation (REC), Freelancer & Contractor Services Association (FCSA), Federation of Small Businesses (FSB)...
Accountancy Age A SERIES OF TESTS to gauge the status of workers has been released by HM Revenue & Customs. The IR35 legislation is designed to prevent people who use intermediary companies to sell their services from being better off than if their clients employed them directly. The clarifications come in the wake of recent controversy surrounding the status of 2,000 senior public sector staff who were employed in this manner.HMRC has released...
Accountancy Age AUF WIEDERSEHEN, PET! actor Tim Healy claimed a partial victory in a landmark tax tribunal against HM Revenue & Customs after it was found his claim for £32,503 in accommodation expenses where "wholly and exclusively for the purposes of his profession", and therefore tax deductible. Healy, who is based in Cheshire, had appeared in the West End musical Billy Elliot for a total of nine months following three months of rehearsals between December...
