Claiming Tax Back on Gift Aid Donations

Gift aid can be very valuable to charities and to community amateur sports clubs (CASCs), as for every £1 donation made under the scheme, the charity or CASC can reclaim 25p from HMRC.

To benefit from the gift aid scheme, the recip...

Letting out your holiday home

If you have a holiday home and decide to let it out, you may be able to benefit from the slightly more generous tax rules that apply to furnished holiday lettings as compared to other types of let, such as a residential let.

To qualify as a...

Claiming tax relief for employment expenses

In most cases, employees will be able to claim back any expenses that they incur in doing their job from their employer. However, where the employer will not reimburse the employee’s expenses, there may be tax relief to be had...

Buy-to-let landlords – relief for interest

With rising property costs and low interest rates, many people took out a mortgage to invest in a buy-to-let property. As long as property prices continued to rise and the tenants paid their rent, investors could make money fro...

Making money from your spare room

Under the rent-a-room scheme, it is possible to earn tax-free income from letting out a furnished room in your own home to a lodger. You can even use the scheme if you run a bed-and-breakfast or a guest house.

Rent-a-room is not availabl...

Corporation tax and trading losses

Relief may be available where you operate your business through a company and you make a loss. The loss may be set against total profits of the current or previous accounting periods or may be carried forward and set against future tra...

A quick overview of capital gains tax

Capital gains tax is payable on net gains to the extent that they exceed the annual exempt amount.

Capital gains tax is a tax on the profit that is made on the disposal of an asset. Normally, this will apply when an asset is sold, bu...

Property development – are you trading?

For many, buying a property, doing it up and selling it for a profit is an attractive proposition. However, it will not always be clearcut when the line between simply investing in property and trading is crossed. From a tax persp...

NICs and the self-employed

Following the Spring Budget, the National Insurance treatment of the self-employed hit the headlines after it was announced the main rate of Class 4 contributions would be increased to 10% from April 2018 and to 11% from April 2019. The measur...

Company cars in 2017/18

Company cars are a popular benefit and are often something of a status symbol. But, they have also been an easy target for the taxman.

Where a company car is available for private use, the employee is taxed on the associated benefit that this prov...