Oliver Accountancy LTD

19/11/2022

Dear clients,
Yesterday the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the Rt Hon Jeremy Hunt MP, made his Autumn Statement 2022 speech. The chancellor set out the government’s plan to put public spending on a sustainable footing and get debt falling, while protecting vital public services and prioritising the needs of the most vulnerable. Full details are set out in the Autumn Statement document on GOV.UK, alongside other relevant documentation from the Office for Budget Responsibilty (OBR) and Treasury. A focused Autumn Finance Bill will be introduced next week to legislate for some of the measures announced today.
Key tax announcements include, a number of threshold and allowances measures, energy levy changes, changes to R&D tax reliefs, and a package of reforms to business rates.
Threshold freezes and personal tax allowance measures
National Insurance contributions thresholds will be fixed at their current rates until April 2028. The government will legislate for the measure through secondary legislation in early 2023.
The National Insurance contributions secondary threshold will be fixed at £9,100 from April 2023 until April 2028. The Employment Allowance will mean the smallest employers will not be affected.
Energy Levies
Energy Profits Levy (EPL) – from 1‌‌‌ ‌‌January 2023, the EPL rate will rise by 10 percentage points to 35% and will be extended to 31‌‌‌ ‌‌March 2028. The investment allowance will be reduced to 29% for all investment expenditure (other than decarbonisation expenditure) broadly maintaining its existing cash value. Decarbonisation expenditure will continue to qualify for the current investment allowance rate of 80%. The government will legislate for these measures in Autumn Finance Bill 2022, except the changes related to decarbonisation expenditure which will be legislated for in Spring Finance Bill 2023.
Corporate Tax changes
Reforms to R&D tax reliefs – for expenditure on or after 1‌‌‌ ‌‌April 2023, the Research & Development Expenditure Credit rate will increase from 13% to 20%, the Small and Medium Enterprise (SME) additional deduction will decrease from 130% to 86%, and the SME credit rate will decrease from 14.5% to 10%. The government is continuing the review of R&D tax reliefs that was launched at Budget 2021 and will consult on the design of a single scheme.

15/06/2021

News

The Office of Tax Simplification (OTS) is to explore changing the end of the tax year from 5 April to either 31 March or the end of the calendar year.

Published in a document on 4 June, the OTS said they would be analysing the "benefits, costs and wider implications" of a change to the end of the tax year, as well as how a change could simplify the UK's tax system.

It was looking at the end of March as a potential date because it is "both the end of a calendar quarter and the nearest month end date to the end of the current tax year".

Many major tax regimes including the USA, France and Germany have a tax year end date of 31 December, a date that aligns with the end of the calendar year.

The UK tax year end date of 5 April is in place for historical reasons with the modern tax system having been built around this date, while modern accounting systems developed around quarter and month-ends.

18/03/2020

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/chancellor-announces-additional-support-to-protect-businesses

The Chancellor Rishi Sunak today announced unprecedented support for business and workers – to protect against the economic emergency caused by the coronavirus.