Points to Ponder!

Welcome to our 74^th. newsletter issued in May 2011, to keep you up to date with some of the changes in Income tax, National Insurance and VAT along with compliance regulations for businesses, plus other oddments that have caught our eye. If you would like a copy of any past newsletters, please call and we can either send or e-mail them to you or you can find them on our website. To save paper, we shall no longer be carrying forward general items from month to month.

One thing we have learnt from the move is that the dilapidations clause in the lease is heavy. Having been told by a solicitor when we signed the lease that this clause was “standard”, we were not prepared to have to put the premises in to better condition than when we first moved in. Please learn by our mistake!

We are now producing our invoices through our book-keeping programme, TASBooks, so they are a similar format to our statements. We do hope this doesn’t confuse things.

HMRC will allow plumbers and people in associated trades to declare their unpaid taxes for the past five years, signalling a change in HMRC policy concerning disclosure agreements. Unlike previous amnesties – such as the Tax Health Plan (THP) and Liechtenstein Disclosure Facility (LDF) – the Plumbers Tax Safe Plan (PTSP) is not based on information unearthed about plumbers' accounts and covers just a five rather than 10-year period. HMRC does not have specific information about plumbers' accounts and as such is using data obtained from the Gas Safe register (previously known as Corgi) to check installers. HMRC has stressed that it is only a minority in the trade who do not fully declare their taxes. If workers in other trades want to come forwards, they will of course be welcomed, but the same amnesty may not apply.

Despite HMRC announcing that they would report on the outcome of the Business Records Check consultation on 31 March, the first letters are already being issued by HMRC, trying to arrange a meeting to carry out a Business Records Check (BRC). HMRC expects to raise at least £6billion through this method so please make sure you do save all your receipts and print all your sales invoices – computers do break down and lost data will not be a reasonable excuse for incomplete records.

The government is to consult on options to integrate the operation of income tax and NICs. A consultation document is to be published later in 2011 setting out current differences and options to address them. The contributory principle of NICs is to be retained and NICs will not be extended to those over state pension age or to additional forms of income. This all sounds complicated but one thing is certain, it will cost the employer more.

Regulations have been approved to increase from 6 April 2011, the rate of approved mileage allowance payments for cars and vans from 40 pence to 45 pence for the first 10,000 miles of business travel in a tax year. HMRC guidance will also be updated to give an allowance for passenger payments currently in place for employees at a rate of 5 pence per passenger per mile to be extended to volunteers. About time too! There was no mention of a change of rate for motorcycles, currently 24p per mile, or changing the 15p per mile allowed for push bikes.

This act states that all websites need to be accessible to blind and disabled users and coded under W3C compliance – over to you John! “We already comply with W3C as we base our website on a free to use product called Joomla. Even though it is free it has been one of the major players in providing Content Management Systems to the web for many years and has, I believe, even contributed to the W3C body of work.”

In addition the Advertising Standards Agency has started a campaign to ensure all marketing messages on company websites are legal, decent, honest and truthful.

Although more businesses are using Facebook and Twitter, they have been proved to be major sources of Viruses. Many firms are banning staff from using these during working hours and any business use should be very carefully monitored and controlled.

The HSE has set up an on-line risk assessment form for employers to check potential hazards in their office. This tool will help avoid unnecessary paperwork and bureaucracy for office-based businesses. Safety officials will take account of the results of the assessments when they carry out inspections – we had better give it a try.