The Fizz! Blog

Why you should set up a direct debit for your VAT payments

If you’re a normal VAT-registered business, you have eight opportunities a year to screw up and fall foul of HMRC’s VAT penalty regime.  You’ve four returns to submit, and four payments to make.  Being late with any of those eight tasks risks a penalty, or accumulating points that eventually lead to a penalty.

If you sign up to make payments by direct debit, you only have four opportunities to screw up, because you then only have to submit the returns - the VAT is automatically collected by HMRC.  The system has always been rock solid.  It’s also better in other ways too - the VAT is automatically taken at the very last minute and you don’t have to worry about getting the right account number and reference from the multiple options that you’ve probably got available in your online banking.

It’s a really easy win and only takes a couple of minutes to set up.  Do it now!

www.fizzhq.com

It's party time! Tax at Christmas 2022

After a party-free 2020 and a party-light 2021 perhaps it's going to be a party hard 2022!  If you're hoping to get the party started, here's a reminder about the tax rules around work Christmas parties and gifts.

If an employer provides a Christmas party that's available to all of its staff (note that this really applies to PAYE employees, as opposed to, say, freelancers), where the cost is less than £150 per head, then it can reclaim all of the VAT and deduct the entire remaining cost from its profits before working out its tax bill - effectively, if a normal VAT-registered limited company holds its party at a normal VAT-registered venue, every £100 spent on the party ends up costing the company £67 in the long run, once they've got the VAT back and saved corporation tax on what's left.  Actually, those allowances apply to annual events, not specifically Christmas ones - so you could have, say, a summer barbecue *and* a Christmas party costing less than £150 a head in total and still reclaim all of the VAT and get tax relief on the balance.

If you want to give a Christmas gift to staff, then in practice HMRC consider a relatively small item like a turkey or a fairly normal bottle of wine to be trivial, and won't try to tax the employee on the value of the gift (as we've written before, sporadic gifts and benefits each valued at £50 or less are explicitly considered trivial by HMRC). Assuming there's VAT on the gift when you buy it, then once more the ultimate cost of £100 of staff gifts to a normal VAT-registered limited company employer will be £67. Anything more valuable the employees will have to pay tax on - and you'll have to pay National Insurance too.

If you give gifts to customers, then they'll only save you tax in full if:

• The total value of gifts in a year to the customer is less than £50,
• The gift has a clear advert for your business on it, and
• You can't eat, drink or smoke it!

If you want to give a customer, say, a bottle of whisky then that's still completely fine, and may well make great business sense! But a) you can only claim the VAT back on the gift if it costs less than £50 and b) you won't save corporation tax on it however much it costs. So a £49 bottle will cost a company £41 in the end (it can get the VAT back but can't save any corporation tax) and a £100 bottle will cost it £100 - it can't reclaim any VAT or reduce your corporation tax or income tax bill at all.

www.fizzhq.com

The VAT Flat Rate Scheme, and why it’s fallen more or less into disuse

From its creation in 2002, the VAT Flat Rate Scheme (FRS) was flawed.  The aim of it sounded alright on paper.  Rather than taking the trouble of figuring out how much VAT you’d paid on costs, deducting that from the VAT you’d collected from customers, and giving HMRC the balance (which is how you’d normally prepare a VAT return), you could forget about costs, and just give HMRC some of the VAT you’d collected from customers and keep the rest as a proxy for the VAT you could have deducted if you totted it up.  The amount of VAT you could keep depended upon the industry you were in - the table of rates attempted to approximate the typical VAT incurred on costs in various industries.  The scheme wasn’t intended to make anyone better or worse off - it was intended to put them in the same position that proper VAT returns would, with a bit less work.

To say the least, there were some problems with this:

1. It was based on the idea that keeping basic, accurate accounting records is somehow red tape that you only do because you’re legally obliged to.  It’s not.  It’s how you know what’s going on with your business, what you could be doing better, and whether you’re throwing your life away and should get a job instead.  The fact that it helps you discharge your tax compliance obligations is a happy by-product.
2. People got very confused about what they should apply the percentage rate to.  Since you work out the VAT to charge on your invoice based on the net invoice amount, many taxpayers quite reasonably assumed you worked out your flat rate payment based on the net also.  You don’t, it’s on the gross amount, including VAT.  Countless businesses underpaid VAT as a result, and more than once the first thing we had to tell a new client was that they owed a load of VAT to HMRC.
3. Crucially, the table of rates was totally rubbish.  There were some big winners from the scheme, but it wasn’t intentional.  It was because they could claim to be part of a category that wasn’t intended for them.  For example, the vehicle repairs category was very generous, as it was modelled on a garage paying  for loads of parts and so on.  But there was nothing to stop a labour-only contractor maintaining aeroplanes and incurring virtually no costs from using it.

In the end HMRC addressed that last problem.  They created a new category called a “Limited Cost Trader”, basically for service businesses that weren’t buying or selling goods or using up a meaningful quantity of consumables in their work.  If you fell into that category, you didn’t get to look at the industry rates.  You just had to use a rate of 16.5% when working out your FRS payment. 

Still, you got to keep 3.5% of the VAT, right?  No.  Remember point 2 above - the FRS payment is based on the *gross* collected from customers, not the net.  So if you receive £20,000 plus £4,000 VAT in a quarter, you apply the 16.5% to the £24,000 total.  That means you give £3,960 to HMRC, which is effectively all of the VAT - you’re only getting to keep £40 as a proxy for the VAT on your costs.  More or less any business like that is going to be incurring more than £40 a quarter in VAT on its costs.  That means that for Limited Cost Traders (which was probably a majority of businesses in the scheme), overnight the FRS really did just become something you’d only rationally do if you simply couldn’t bring yourself to keep proper records of VAT incurred on costs.  But for anyone willing to keep basic, conventional VAT records, coming out of the scheme was obviously best.

From our perspective on accounting, this is good!  As we said, keeping accounting records isn’t something you should do for tax purposes, it’s something you should do for information purposes, and for most small businesses things can really be set up pretty efficiently to get that done without too much manual effort.  But if you remained on the FRS, do check if it’s the right thing to do.  You can guarantee that there are lots of Limited Cost Traders who don’t realise they’re Limited Cost Traders, and HMRC are quite likely to catch up with them in the end.

www.fizzhq.com

It's party time! Tax at Christmas (2021 edition)

We generally publish a reminder about this stuff every year, but for obvious reasons we skipped writing about Christmas parties in 2020.  But if you are going to be holding a staff Christmas party this year, here's a reminder about the tax rules around Christmas parties and gifts.

If an employer provides a Christmas party that's available to all of its staff (note that this really applies to PAYE employees, as opposed to, say, freelancers), where the cost is less than £150 per head, then it can reclaim all of the VAT and deduct the entire remaining cost from its profits before working out its tax bill - effectively, if a normal VAT-registered limited company holds its party at a normal VAT-registered venue, every £100 spent on the party ends up costing the company £71 in the long run, once they've got the VAT back and saved corporation tax on what's left (normally that'd be £67, but this year the venue will be charging you the temporarily reduced hospitality rate of VAT of 12.5% rather than 20%, just to add another little complication to thing, so there won't be as much VAT to reclaim). Actually, those allowances apply to annual events, not specifically Christmas ones - so you could have, say, a summer barbecue *and* a Christmas party costing less than £150 a head in total and still reclaim all of the VAT and get tax relief on the balance.

If you want to give a Christmas gift to staff, then in practice HMRC consider a relatively small item like a turkey or a fairly normal bottle of wine to be trivial, and won't try to tax the employee on the value of the gift (as we've written before, sporadic gifts and benefits each valued at £50 or less are explicitly considered trivial by HMRC). Assuming there's VAT on the gift when you buy it, then once more the ultimate cost of £100 of staff gifts to a normal VAT-registered limited company employer will be £67. Anything more valuable the employees will have to pay tax on - and you'll have to pay National Insurance too.

If you give gifts to customers, then they'll only save you tax in full if:

• The total value of gifts in a year to the customer is less than £50,
• The gift has a clear advert for your business on it, and
• You can't eat, drink or smoke it!

If you want to give a customer, say, a bottle of whisky then that's still completely fine, and may well make great business sense! But a) you can only claim the VAT back on the gift if it costs less than £50 and b) you won't save corporation tax on it however much it costs. So a £49 bottle will cost a company £41 in the end (it can get the VAT back but can't save any corporation tax) and a £100 bottle will cost it £100 - it can't reclaim any VAT or reduce your corporation tax or income tax bill at all.

www.fizzhq.com

Tax at Christmas (COVID edition)

Around this time of year, we usually publish a reminder about the tax rules around Christmas parties and gifts.  Of course, there's a big change this year, which is that it's rather unlikely that many employers are going to be holding Christmas parties in person.  However:

• If you decide to defer your Christmas party until some time in 2021 when (hopefully) you'll be able to hold it in a safe and legal way, you'll still be able to benefit from these allowances - an annual event is an annual event, even if it happens late.
• HMRC have confirmed that if you decide to hold some kind of event online - so, perhaps you provide everyone with their food and drink at home and all meet up on Zoom - then that event is covered by those allowances too.  To be honest, it's perfectly obvious that such an event will be covered, and we're not quite sure who would have asked for confirmation from HMRC, but there it is for avoidance of doubt!

So, having said that, the framework remains the same as ever.  If an employer provides a Christmas party that's available to all of its staff (note that this really applies to PAYE employees, as opposed to, say, freelancers), where the cost is less than £150 per head, then it can reclaim all of the VAT and deduct the entire remaining cost from its profits before working out its tax bill - effectively, if a normal VAT-registered limited company holds its party at a normal VAT-registered venue, every £100 spent on the party ends up costing the company £67 in the long run, once they've got the VAT back and saved corporation tax on what's left.  Actually, those allowances apply to annual events, not specifically Christmas ones - so you could have, say, a summer barbecue *and* a Christmas party costing less than £150 a head in total and still reclaim all of the VAT and get tax relief on the balance.

If you want to give a Christmas gift to staff, then in practice HMRC consider a relatively small item like a turkey or a fairly normal bottle of wine to be trivial, and won't try to tax the employee on the value of the gift (as we've written before, sporadic gifts and benefits each valued at £50 or less are now explicitly considered trivial by HMRC).  Assuming there's VAT on the gift when you buy it, then once more the ultimate cost of £100 of staff gifts to a normal VAT-registered limited company employer will be £67.  Anything more valuable the employees will have to pay tax on - and you'll have to pay National Insurance too.

If you give gifts to customers, then they'll only save you tax if:

• The total value of gifts in a year to the customer is less than £50,
• The gift has a clear advert for your business on it, and
• You can't eat, drink or smoke it!

If you want to give a customer a bottle of whisky then that's still completely fine, and may well make great business sense!  It's just that for every £100 you spend on gifts like that, it costs your business the full £100 - you can't reclaim any VAT or reduce your corporation tax or income tax bill at all.

www.fizzhq.com

"Should I put this new sideline through my limited company?"

Pretty often, someone tells us about a new activity that they've started engaging in to make a bit of money on the side. They wonder whether they should channel the income through the limited company they make their main living from, or if they should keep it separate.

In most cases, there are three big picture factors to think about.

First, there's a fundamental elegance to having all of your income going through the same vehicle. One of the benefits of a limited company is that you can chuck all sorts in revenue in, and draw your income out in a steady manner - that way, you can plan your income and tax bills, smooth out variable business profits over the years, and perhaps build up a safety cushion for the future. If you have multiple personal sources of income, things are a bit trickier. So the default is to stick everything through the company, and it's virtually always possible to do that.

However, then you have to think about VAT. If your company is VAT registered, its new sideline is going to be VATable too. That's fine if it's a business-to-business sideline - most likely the customers won't care if you add VAT to your prices. If it's business-to-consumer, though, the customers will care - the VAT is a real cost to them. So you're going to have to suck it up and pay the VAT out of the selling price, meaning 1/6th of the income going straight to HMRC before even thinking about corporation tax. So, for a B2C sideline, you might decide to operate as a sole trader. If you want to do that, though, the businesses really need to be kept separate (i.e. separate customer invoices, getting paid into a different bank account, keeping separate records, placing separate orders for any materials etc), to reduce the risk of HMRC successfully arguing that it's really just one big VATable business.

Finally, there's the trading allowance. For the last few years, sole traders have been able to claim a flat deduction of £1,000 in place of actual costs in order to work out their taxable profits. Your limited company won't get that deduction, it must claim actual costs, and maybe there aren't many of those. So you might want to keep the sideline as sole trader income; if it's under £1,000 you don't have to report it to HMRC at all.

Obviously, there are other factors too - and if it's not a sideline but a real business you'd certainly consider it in more detail. But for anyone trying at present to boost their income just a little bit, those are the first three things we'd think about. And that's a conversation best had before the sideline kicks off - if you've already agreed a contract or sale with a customer as a limited company, you can't just change your mind later!

www.fizzhq.com

A round-up of help available to sole traders and partners in partnerships

Now that new announcements have dried up (for a little at least), we’ve put together a round-up of the help available for sole traders and partners in partnerships (you can see our equivalent for limited company owners – the same in many respects – here). 

Self-Employment Income Support Scheme

We’ve emailed clients about this scheme in detail already, but in short anyone who was a sole trader or partner in a partnership in 2018-19, got most of their income that way, and had profits of less than £50,000 will be eligible for a grant.  That’s as long as they’re still a sole trader or partner, and as long as their business has been affected by coronavirus.  The grant will be based on 80% of average profits, capped at £2,500 a month, initially paid for three months.  It'll be taxable, just as the profit would have been.

Even if you do qualify, HMRC's aim is to start to get money to people at the end of June, and the process will involve *them* contacting *you* on the basis of the information they hold about your income, not the other way round.  So there's a cashflow gap to bridge, and there's nothing you can do to speed the process along.

VAT and Tax deferrals

The vast majority of our clients are great at saving for VAT and personal tax as they go, and the tax payment deferral measures should mean that you can safely dip into your tax savings for a while if you need to.  If you want to do that, then:

• VAT payments for the quarters ending in February, March or April can be delayed until early 2021 (though if you’ve a direct debit in place with HMRC for your VAT it’s important that you cancel it – they’ll take the VAT on time otherwise).
• You can delay your July 2020 personal self-assessment payment until January 2021.

Deferring PAYE payments if you have employees

The VAT and self-assessment deferments above are automatic and you don’t have to apply for them.  There aren’t any formal general agreements that PAYE can be delayed.  But HMRC have set up a special helpline for businesses that need to discuss deferring other payments.

It might take a long time to get through, although a client called them one day last week at 8.15am and she was through within five minutes, so aiming for the start or end of the day is probably sensible.  It sounds as if generally HMRC are very open to agreeing more generous payment terms.

Grants

• Rates-related grants - If you formally rent premises subject to Business Rates, you should be eligible for a grant if either (a) you currently benefit from Small Business Rate Relief (remembering that you will qualify even if SBRR means you pay no business rates all), or (b) you’re in the retail, hospitality, nursery or leisure sectors.
• Job Retention Scheme - If you employ staff but don’t currently have work for them, you can use the JRS to claim a grant to cover 80% of their wages.
• Statutory Sick Pay – some years ago HMRC stopped reimbursing employers for SSP they paid to staff – but they will now reimburse it if it’s coronavirus-related. Not right away, though, there’s no mechanism for doing so right now, so you’ll need to fund the (modest) cashflow to begin with.
• A self-employed person can’t get SSP, but if you’re unable to work because of coronavirus, or you’re having to self-isolate and cannot work from home, you may be able to claim ESA, albeit it’s not a lot of money and has similar conditions as Universal Credit.

Other things to consider

• Check your business insurance policy, in case you have Business Interruption cover.
• Speak to your landlord (for both your home if you rent, and your business premises) to see if you can delay payments, get a discount, or a rent-free period. Some landlords are open to this.
• Consider talking to your lender to arrange a mortgage payment holiday.
• Talk to your bank to see if you can arrange a business or personal overdraft facility.
• If a loan would be more appropriate, consider asking your bank about the government-backed Business Interruption Loan Scheme.
• If you want to take another job during this period, that’s absolutely fine – there’s nothing to stop you from having a job as well as being self-employed.
• Universal Credit may be available to you – you’ll need to check online to see whether you meet the criteria, but it’s potentially worth a look.
• Some clients are finding opportunities to use their skills to provide different services, or to deliver their services in new ways, or to find new customers to target. It could be worth asking yourself whether you can adapt your business model to find opportunities in the current circumstances – we’re seeing a number of clients doing this successfully.
• Remember also that it’s fine to dip into your savings. While it’s natural to want to preserve them, one of the great benefits of having savings is to help you survive an unexpected loss of income.  With interest rates on cash savings being low, it’s unlikely to cost much in terms of lost interest, and you can look to rebuild savings once things return to normal.  You’ll need to check the rules for withdrawals from your particular account, but even some ISAs now allow you to withdraw cash and replace it later in the same tax year.

Hopefully there are some helpful pointers here, and we’ll of course let you know as and when any new measures are announced.

www.fizzhq.com

A round-up of help available to limited company owners

As announcements about financial help and support in the current crisis have been released gradually over the last week or so, now seems a good time for a round-up of the help available to limited company owners.  While there is no single measure aimed specifically at director/shareholders (unlike employees, sole traders and partners in partnerships), there is still help available.

VAT and Tax deferrals

The vast majority of our limited company clients are great at saving for corporation tax, VAT and personal tax as they go, and the tax payment deferral measures should mean that you can safely dip into your tax savings for a while if you need to.

• VAT payments for the quarters ending in February, March or April can be delayed until early 2021 (though if you’ve a direct debit in place with HMRC for your VAT it’s important that you cancel it – they’ll take the VAT on time otherwise).
• It’s now been confirmed that all self-assessment taxpayers (not just sole traders and partners) can delay their July 2020 personal tax payment until January 2021.
• For companies with a March year-end, you should hopefully have a year’s worth of corporation tax in the bank, which isn’t due to be paid until the end of this year.

This should mean that must companies will have a cash reserve available to draw on.  And if you don’t have sufficient profits to pay dividends, then borrowing money from your company is an option.

Deferring other taxes

The VAT and self-assessment deferments above are automatic and you don’t have to apply for them.  There aren’t any formal general agreements that other tax payments can be delayed.  But HMRC have set up a special helpline for businesses that need to discuss deferring other payments.

It might take a long time to get through, although a client called them one day last week at 8.15am and she was through within five minutes, so aiming for the start or end of the day is probably sensible.  It sounds as if generally HMRC are very open to agreeing more generous payment terms.

Grants

• Rates-related grants - If you formally rent premises subject to Business Rates, you should be eligible for a grant if either (a) you currently benefit from Small Business Rate Relief (remembering that you will qualify even if SBRR means you pay no business rates all), or (b) you’re in the retail, hospitality, nursery or leisure sectors.

• Job Retention Scheme - If you employ staff but don’t currently have work for them, you can use the JRS to claim a grant to cover 80% of their wages. This scheme is not intended to cover directors, but it's looking quite likely that HMRC may end up being sympathetic to eventual claims from companies against part of a director's small salary where the company's work has totally dried up.  But nobody knows that yet, the claims process won't exist for at least a month, and there's no action you can take now that will make a difference.  So you'll just have to be patient on that one.

• Statutory Sick Pay – some years ago HMRC stopped reimbursing employers for SSP they paid to staff – but they will now reimburse it if it’s coronavirus-related. Not right away, though, there’s no mechanism for doing so right now, so you’ll need to fund the (modest) cashflow to begin with.

Director’s Loan Account and profit reserves

• It may well be that your company owes you some money on your Director’s Loan Account, which can be paid out to you tax-free while you’re not earning. Do check with us if you’re unsure.

• Don’t forget that if you have profits built up from previous years, you can use those to keep paying yourself dividends, even if you’re not currently working. The beauty of a limited company is that you have the ability to smooth out dividends, even when profits are volatile.  For those of you who have been in the habit of drawing less than the company has made in profits in the past, now is the time to make use of those extra profits!

Other things to consider

• Check your business insurance policy, in case you have Business Interruption cover.
• Speak to your landlord (for both your home if you rent, and your business premises) to see if you can delay payments, get a discount, or a rent-free period. Some landlords are open to this.
• Consider talking to your lender to arrange a mortgage payment holiday.
• Talk to your bank to see if you can arrange a business or personal overdraft facility.
• If a loan would be more appropriate, consider asking your bank about the government-backed Business Interruption Loan Scheme
• If you want to take another job during this period, that’s absolutely fine – there’s nothing to stop you from having a job alongside your own limited company.
• Universal Credit may be available to you – you’ll need to check online to see whether you meet the criteria, but it’s potentially worth a look.
• Some clients are finding opportunities to use their skills to provide different services, or to deliver their services in new ways, or to find new customers to target. It could be worth asking yourself whether you can adapt your business model to find opportunities in the current circumstances – we’re seeing a number of clients doing this successfully.
• Remember also that it’s fine to dip into your savings. While it’s natural to want to preserve them, one of the great benefits of having savings is to help you survive an unexpected loss of income.  With interest rates on cash savings being low, it’s unlikely to cost much in terms of lost interest, and you can look to rebuild savings once things return to normal.  You’ll need to check the rules for withdrawals from your particular account, but even some ISAs now allow you to withdraw cash and replace it later in the same tax year.

Hopefully there are some helpful pointers here, and we’ll of course let you know as and when any new measures are announced.

www.fizzhq.com

HMRC's fuel-only mileage rates - make sure you're reclaiming all the VAT you can

Taxman-approved fuel-only mileage rates changed on the 1st December.   They've not changed much (the petrol ones haven't changed at all in fact).

These are the rates that HMRC are happy for employers to use a) to reimburse staff for fuel used for company business that they've paid for and put in company cars, or b) reclaim from staff the cost of company fuel they've used for their own private motoring.  But they're also the rates that businesses can use to reclaim VAT on some of the mileage allowances paid to employees and directors.

Employers can pay a mileage allowance of up to 45p a mile, tax-free, when employees use their own car for business (plus 5p a mile if they've got a colleague with them!).  That hasn't changed, it remains 45p.  You can’t reclaim VAT on all of the 45p, but you can reclaim VAT on the part that represents fuel, as long as you retain VAT receipts covering the cost.

The new list of rates is here:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/advisory-fuel-rates/advisory-fuel-rates-from-1-march-2016

If you're VAT registered, not on the flat-rate scheme, and failing to reclaim VAT on your mileage costs at all, you should start.  You can even reclaim some of the VAT you've missed out on in the past.

www.fizzhq.com

Big VAT changes in the building industry in 2019

There's an ongoing problem with the VAT system.  When one VAT-registered business is selling to another VAT-registered business, the transaction is generally "VAT-neutral".  One company charges VAT to the other company, which pays it to them.  The first company gives the VAT to HMRC, the second company claims back exactly the same amount from HMRC.  Overall everyone is in the same position.  That's how it's supposed to work - at root, VAT is a tax on consumers, not on businesses.

There's a problem there, though.  What happens if the first company doesn't give the VAT to HMRC, but instead shuts down or goes missing?  The second company will still most likely claim the VAT back from HMRC, and get it.  In that case, the public finances (we) have lost out.  That wasn't a VAT-neutral exchange.

This "missing trader" fraud used to be a particularly big problem with the import and export of computer chips and mobile phones, where it was relatively easy to create large purchases and sales of those commodities, and make off with one half of the VAT.  That was known as "carousel" fraud.  You don't hear about it so much today - presumably HMRC are largely on top of it now.

Another industry where HMRC clearly think it's a problem is the construction industry, where they consider businesses are similarly prone to disappearing, along with the VAT they've been given by a customer.  So, next year, in October 2019, the way VAT works in construction will change.  In the kind of example above, the supplier will no longer charge VAT to the customer.  Instead, the customer will just put both the VAT on the sale AND the VAT on the purchase on their own return, just as an academic exercise, cancelling each other out (this sounds redundant, but is necessary since there are occasions where someone is blocked from getting all the VAT back on their costs).  So the supplier no longer has any VAT to run away with.

This is an excellent idea in general, though it's fair to say that not every trader in the building industry has totally bomb-proof accounting systems, so in practice there's bound to be a bit of confusion to begin with!

www.fizzhq.com