Tax E-News February 2024
Welcome to our latest monthly tax newswire. We hope you enjoy reading this newsletter and find it useful. Contact us if you wish to discuss any issues further.
Below we set out some of the main points.
YEAR END TAX PLANNING
It’s not too late to undertake some end of year tax planning. If you have some spare cash, an obvious tax planning point would be to maximise your ISA allowances for the 2023/24 tax year (currently £20,000 each). You might also want to consider increasing your pension savings before 5 April 2024.
USE A LIFETIME ISA (LISA) TO SAVE FOR YOUR FIRST HOME
Those aged between 18 and 40 can set up a Lifetime ISA (Individual Savings Account) to buy their first home or save for later life. You can put in up to £4,000 each year until you’re 50. The government will add a 25% bonus to your savings, up to a maximum of £1,000 per year…
PENSION PLANNING
Under the current rules, the government adds to your pension contributions at the 20% basic rate. For instance, if you save £4,000 in a personal pension, the government tops this up to £5,000. If you are a higher rate taxpayer there is a further £1,000 tax relief when your tax liability is calculated …
CAPITAL GAINS TAX PLANNING
You might wish to consider bringing forward capital gains to before 6 April 2024 where you haven’t used your £6,000 CGT annual exemption. This exempt amount reduces to just £3,000 for gains made in 2024/25.
CAPITAL EXPENDITURE PLANNING
Unless the business year end is 31 March or 5 April, the end of the tax year is not a significant date as far as capital allowances are concerned. In order for new equipment to attract capital allowances, the expenditure must be incurred on or before the end of the accounting period.
GET READY FOR MORE R&D CHANGES
On top of the major changes to research and development (R&D) tax relief that took effect from 1 April 2023, there are yet more changes that take effect from 1 April 2024…
ADVISORY FUEL RATE FOR COMPANY CARS
The table below sets out the HMRC advisory fuel rates from 1 March 2024. These are the suggested reimbursement rates for employees’ private mileage using their company car …
DON’T BE LATE IN PAYING YOUR PERSONAL TAX BILL
2022/23 income tax, CGT, class 2 and 4 NIC liabilities should have been paid by 31 January 2024 unless you have agreed a payment plan with HMRC. Note that if the balance is still unpaid at the end of February 2024, a 5% surcharge penalty is added in addition to the normal interest charge unless a payment plan has been agreed.