If you haven’t already retired, you need to rack up 35 full years of National Insurance Contributions (NICs) in order to receive the maximum state retirement pension. To receive any amount of state retirement pension, you need at least 10 full years of NICs contributions. Your online personal tax account (at: www.gov.uk/personal-tax-account) will show you
Read MoreIf you are a company owner, you will be used to taking funds you need from your company in the form of a small salary. With anything extra paid as dividends, or perhaps as rent or interest. For some years the first £2,000 of dividends received by each taxpayer has been tax-free. However, that is
Read MoreA PAYE K code reduces your personal allowance to zero and adds a notional amount of income on to your salary to be taxed. The imposition of a K code will result in a significant amount of tax being deducted from your earnings. HMRC will impose a K code to collect existing tax debts, tax
Read MoreHMRC is writing to online sellers, gig economy workers and influencers, asking for tax to be paid up for earlier years. People who make money from the online content they create may not realise that they need to declare that income for tax purposes. Where it exceeds £1,000 per year. This rule applies even if
Read MoreThe old system of VAT default surcharges could be quite harsh, as a penalty of up to 15% of the late paid VAT could be levied for paying just one day late. The new system, that applies for VAT periods beginning on or after 1 January 2023, is fairer to those who miss the VAT
Read MoreMany people are struggling to pay their bills right now, as tax is pushed down the list behind heating and food. If you still have tax outstanding for 2021/22, there are some things you can do. Firstly, review your payments on account for 2022/23, which are scheduled to be paid in two equal amounts on
Read MoreSince 2020/21, the deduction of mortgage interest and other finance costs (e.g. arrangement fees) from residential rents is completely blocked for tax purposes for individual landlords (not companies). Instead, the landlord receives tax relief at the basic rate (20%) as a tax credit against the tax due on the property income. With interest rates rising,
Read MoreSole traders and individual landlords have an additional two years to prepare for the new reporting requirements under Making Tax Digital for Income Tax Self-Assessment (MTD ITSA), which is now due to come into effect from 6 April 2026. Those with small levels of sales have even longer to prepare, as the turnover threshold for
Read MoreThe new tax year starting in April will see personal allowances frozen, as well as cuts to tax exemptions that could increase your tax bills. Your tax-free personal allowance will be frozen for the third year running at £12,570 and the basic rate band also held at £37,700. This means you will pay tax at
Read MoreIf you are looking forward to retirement, it’s a good idea to check out how much state pension you will get. You can do this by logging on to your personal tax account on gov.uk, which contains lots of useful information about how much tax you owe and about your National Insurance Contributions (NICs) record,
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