Chancellor Philip Hammond has announced that he will deliver the Autumn Budget on Wednesday 22 November.

The Autumn Budget will be the second Budget to be delivered this year, and will outline the government’s proposed tax changes and spending plans in response to forecasts from the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR). The 2017 Autumn Budget will be the first of its kind under the government’s new fiscal timetable. During the 2016 Autumn Statement, the Chancellor announced that the annual Budget will now take place in the Autumn, as opposed to Spring.

Going forward Philip Hammond will make a Spring Statement each year, responding to a forecast produced by the OBR. The first Spring Statement will be delivered in 2018.

Meanwhile Finance Secretary Derek Mackay has confirmed the Scottish Draft Budget 2018/19 will be published on 14 December, three weeks after the Budget for the rest of the United Kingdom.

We will update you on pertinent announcements from the Autumn Budget and Scottish Budget in due course.

The government have issued information on how Making Tax Digital for Business (MTDfB) is expected to work for VAT once the rules are introduced in April 2019.

Under the proposed rules, which have been issued subject to consultation, VAT registered businesses with turnover over the VAT registration threshold will be required to submit their VAT return digitally using software. Businesses with a turnover above the VAT threshold (currently £85,000) will have to:

• keep their records digitally (for VAT purposes only) and
• provide their VAT return information to HMRC through Making Tax Digital (MTD) functional compatible software.

This software will either be a software program or set of compatible software programs which can connect to HMRC systems via an Application Programming Interface (API). The functions of the compatible software include:

• keeping records in a specified digital form
• preserving digital records in a specified digital form
• creating a VAT return from the digital records and providing HMRC with this information digitally
• providing HMRC with VAT data on a voluntary basis and
• receiving information from HMRC via the API platform that the business has complied.

Businesses will need to preserve digital records in the software for up to six years. Further information on the required information can be found in Annex 1

The government will make the final detailed requirements available to the software providers by April 2018 to allow time for the software to be developed and tested prior to the rules coming into effect from April 2019.

VAT is the first tax to be reportable under MTD and businesses within the scope of MTD will need to keep their records digitally, using approved MTD functional compatible software, from 1 April 2019. The software will create the return from the digital records and this will need to be submitted under MTD for return periods starting on or after 1 April 2019.

We will keep you informed of developments in this area and ensure we are ready to deal with the new requirements. Please contact us for more information.

The Low Incomes Tax Reform Group (LITRG) has welcomed a recent announcement by the Government that there will be a one-year delay before the removal of Class 2 National Insurance contributions (NICs) to enable consultation on the impact of its abolition on the self-employed with low incomes.

If Class 2 NICs were abolished, those with profits below the small profits threshold (currently £6,025) would currently have to pay Class 3 contributions, which are five times as much as Class 2 contributions, if they want to build up an entitlement to contributory benefits such as the state retirement pension. LITRG is keen for a way to be found for the low-income self-employed to continue to be able to make affordable savings towards their pension at a rate like the present Class 2, perhaps by introducing a lower rate of Class 3.

LITRG Chair Anne Fairpo said:

“We welcome the announcement by the Government that they intend to consult with organisations such as ours which have concerns relating to the impact of the abolition of Class 2 NICs on self-employed individuals with low profits. We look forward to working with the Government to lessen the risk of unintended consequences.

“The abolition of Class 2 NICs will be a significant change to how people contribute to qualify for certain benefits and the State Pension.

“We welcome the breathing space on this matter because of our concerns that the abolition of Class 2 was being rushed through without adequate further consultation, together with a lack of publicity and guidance for the people affected.”

The delay means the measures in the unpublished NIC Bill will now take effect one year later, from April 2019. This includes the abolition of Class 2 NICs, reforms to the NICs treatment of termination payments, and changes to the NICs treatment of sporting testimonials.

The Office of Tax Simplification (OTS) published a report setting out a range of proposals for simplifying VAT. According to the OTS the tax is showing its age. What was meant to be a simple tax has become highly complex and it has not kept pace with changes in society.

The most significant issue identified in the report is the VAT registration threshold – the turnover level above which a business must enter the VAT system and charge VAT on its sales. At £85,000 the UK has one of the highest levels in the world.

By enabling many small businesses to stay out of the VAT system the high threshold is a form of simplification, but it’s an expensive relief, costing around £2bn per annum, and evidence strongly suggests that many growing businesses are discouraged from expanding beyond this point. The report looks at options for reducing the current ‘cliff edge’ effect resulting in a very visible bunching of businesses just before the VAT threshold, and an equally large drop off in the number of businesses with turnovers just above the threshold. Also examined are the advantages and disadvantages of lowering or increasing the threshold.

VAT has many ‘quirks’. For example, it is well known that a Jaffa cake is a cake (zero-rated) rather than a chocolate-covered biscuit (taxed at 20%). Less well known is that while children’s clothes are zero-rated, including many items made from fur skin, items made from Tibetan goat skin are standard-rated. And a ginger bread man with chocolate eyes is zero-rated but if it has chocolate trousers it would be standard rated. VAT zero rates cost over £45bn per annum to maintain. EU law limits options to make changes in this area but there is a longer-term opportunity to significantly improve the efficiency, simplicity and fairness of the UK VAT system.

The OTS report, will need to be examined in some detail. It will be interesting to see if we could achieve a real simplification of this complex tax or if, yet again, smaller businesses are required to absorb more red tape and tax burden while larger concerns with stronger lobbies and resources continue to avoid liability.

If a parent owes child maintenance, deductions to recover that debt can currently only be made from a bank or building society account held solely by them.

Unfortunately, a small minority of parents are cheating their way out of supporting their children by putting their money into a joint account with a partner.

New laws will be brought in to allow deductions to be made from joint accounts to recover child maintenance arrears.

It is believed that by closing this loophole this could stop many parents getting away with not paying their child maintenance each year – leading to more than £390,000 additional child maintenance being collected.

The recent government’s response to a public consultation on joint account deductions has been published. This sets out how deduction orders against joint accounts will work and the safeguards that will be in place to protect the other holder of the joint account.

These include:

• a deduction order only being imposed on a joint account when the paying parent does not have their own account, or there is not enough money in their own account
• only funds belonging to the paying parent being targeted, as before a deduction order is made on a joint account, data on that bank account will be collected and bank statements examined to establish which money in the account belongs to the paying parent
• existing safeguards already in place for deduction orders for child maintenance will apply to this new power, including the maximum deduction rate on regular orders being set at 40% of the paying parent’s weekly income
• both account holders will be given the right to make their case before a deduction order is made

The new power will come into effect early next year.

1 November 2017 – Due date for corporation tax due for the year ended 31 January 2017.

19 November 2017 – PAYE and NIC deductions due for month ended 5 November 2017. (If you pay your tax electronically the due date is 22 November 2017.)

19 November 2017 – Filing deadline for the CIS300 monthly return for the month ended 5 November 2017.

19 November 2017 – CIS tax deducted for the month ended 5 November 2017 is payable by today.

1 December 2017 – Due date for corporation tax due for the year ended 29 February 2017.

19 December 2017 – PAYE and NIC deductions due for month ended 5 December 2017. (If you pay your tax electronically the due date is 22 December 2017)

19 December 2017 – Filing deadline for the CIS300 monthly return for the month ended 5 December 2017.

19 December 2017 – CIS tax deducted for the month ended 5 December 2017 is payable by today.

30 December 2017 – Deadline for filing 2016-17 self-assessment tax returns online to include a claim for under payments to be collected via tax code in 2018-19.

Many companies have adopted the end of March each year as their accounting year end date.

Corporation tax is payable by most smaller companies nine months and one day after the end of their accounts year end. Accordingly, companies that have adopted a 31 March date will need to pay any corporation tax liability for the year to 31 March 2017 on or before 1 January 2018; just a few weeks away.

The same dates also determine the payment of additional corporation tax if certain overdrawn director’s loans (at 31 March 2017) are not repaid before the end of the year. Additional corporation tax due will be based on 32.5% of any applicable director’s or shareholder loans affected by this ruling. The tax can be recovered, but there will be a delay. Repayments cannot be made until the effective payment date for the accounting year during which the loans were cleared. Effectively, if the loans are paid back May 2018, a refund will not be made until 1 January 2020.

One of the few remaining options to carry back tax allowable payments to a previous tax year is the facility to set off certain charitable donations made after 5 April 2017, to the tax year 2016-17.

Allowable donations have the effect of extending the amount of income you can earn at the basic rate of income tax – the donations extend the basic rate tax band. This can be a useful planning device if say your income for 2016-17 included a one-off boost that meant you paid higher rate tax (40%), but your income for 2017-18 would only be taxed at basic rate (20%). By carrying back any charitable donations made after 5 April 2017, you would decrease your higher rate tax liability for 2016-17.

You automatically qualify for basic rate income tax relief on your gift aid donations, you effectively pay a net of tax figure to the charity and they reclaim the deemed basic rate tax from HMRC. Accordingly, this carry back option will have no impact on your tax liabilities if you are a basic rate tax payer in both years. The carry back will also have no effect on the charities’ finances.

Taxpayers need to be careful when considering their options as you can only qualify for relief if your tax payments in a year equal or exceed the deemed basic rate tax credits deducted from your donations. HMRC notes confirm:

But for Gift Aid, you can also claim tax relief on donations you make in the current tax year (up to the date you send your return) if you either:

• want tax relief sooner
• won’t pay higher rate tax in current year, but you did in the previous year

You can’t do this if:

• you miss the [filing] deadline (31 January [2018] if you file online [for 2016-17])
• your donations don’t qualify for Gift Aid – your donations from both tax years together must not be more than 4 times what you paid in tax in the previous year.

If you feel that you may benefit from this strategy we would be delighted to check out the numbers for you.

If you file your 2016-17 self-assessment tax return on or before 30 December 2017, you can elect to spread the repayment of any underpayment of tax for 2016-17 to the tax year 2018-19. This is done by amending your tax code for 2018-19 such that any arrears are repaid by increasing your tax payments each pay period.

There are caveats to the use of this facility, one of which we have already mentioned, that you need to file your 2016-17 return online by 30 December 2017 (if you still file a paper return the filing deadline has passed, 31 October 2017, and so this option would not be available unless you filed prior to this date).

There are two further limitations:

• You owe less than £3,000 for 2016-17, and
• You pay tax via PAYE on your employed earnings or on a private pension.

Additionally, you won’t be able to repay outstanding tax via your tax code if:

• You would pay more than 50% of your PAYE income in tax, or
• You would be paying more than twice as much tax as you usually do.

If you can use this scheme it would spread your tax repayments over a twelve-month period (6 April 2018 to 5 April 2019).