Meacher Jones Chartered Accountants and Business Advisers

03/09/2026

HMRC have reminded businesses that the Approved Mileage Allowance Payments (MAPs) have been updated for the 2026-27 tax year.

Rates have
• Increased to 55p per mile for the first 10,000 miles.
• Remained at 25p per mile after 10,000 miles.

These changes are backdated to 6 April 2026.

If you reimburse your employees at or below the approved MAP rate, you may want to increase the amount you reimburse your employees for business mileage, in line with the new approved MAP rates.

Reimbursement?
If you paid your employees mileage payments above the old rates, Income Tax and/or Class 1 National Insurance contributions may have been deducted that may no longer be due.

If so, you can correct the payroll for previous months so that overpaid tax and both employers' and employees’ Class 1 National Insurance contributions can be refunded.

If you need any help in doing this, please feel free to get in touch. We’d be happy to help you!

31/08/2026

UK businesses are facing a “cost of business crisis”, according to the British Chambers of Commerce (BCC). Its new cost-stack calculator shows government policy alone has pushed up an average firm's expenses by 70% over the past decade, adding roughly £827,000 a year in costs for a typical mid-sized business.

About a quarter of the rise stems from the increase in employer National Insurance contributions, with the higher minimum wage and mandatory pension auto-enrolment also major contributors.

The BCC warns this cost burden is pushing firms into a “risk-aversion cycle”, denting SME investment and confidence. The 70% figure excludes tariffs, inflation, and Brexit effects, meaning real cost increases are likely higher.

While businesses cannot control policy costs, they can review pricing, supplier contracts and operating efficiencies. Benchmarking your position against similar businesses may also help identify where cost increases can be recovered or reduced.

Contact us if you would like assistance with cashflow forecasting, margin and pricing review or client profitability analysis.

28/08/2026

What should your employment law reform priorities be?

Acas's Julie Dennis has set out how HR teams should approach the Employment Rights Act 2025, one of the most significant changes to UK employment law in recent years, which became law on 18 December 2025 and is being phased in through 2026–2027.

Several changes are already in force, including:

• Statutory sick pay from day one (with the lower earnings limit removed).
• Day-one paternity and unpaid parental leave rights.
• A new bereaved partner's paternity leave.
• Stronger whistleblowing protection for those reporting sexual harassment.

For these changes, employers should have already reviewed related policies, payroll, and manager guidance, and communicated with staff.
It is important to be clear that day-one leave rights don't always mean day-one pay rights.

Further reforms are still to come, covering unfair dismissal, harassment, flexible working, and zero-hours contracts, meaning businesses need a staged plan rather than treating this as a single change with one start date. This should not be a single compliance project; regular policy reviews will be essential, and businesses should not wait for the remaining reforms to take effect.

The compliance environment is also tightening. The new Fair Work Agency will consolidate enforcement powers, and employers must keep compliance records for six years, including holiday pay and annual leave records.

Acas recommends businesses:
1. Know the timeline: separate what has already changed from what is expected later.
2. Prioritise policy and contract review, especially sickness, family leave, flexible working, harassment, dismissal and records.
3. Train line managers. They need to understand the processes they are expected to follow and feel confident having early, fair and consistent conversations.
4. Strengthen compliance systems. Review how decisions are recorded, how evidence is kept and how employees are told about their rights.

See : https://f.mtr.cool/kxlq4e6drd

25/08/2026

Under Making Tax Digital (MTD) for Income Tax, sole traders and landlords with income of more than £50,000 have been required to keep digital records and send quarterly updates to HMRC since 6 April 2026.

The first quarterly submission deadline, covering the first three months of the 2026-27 tax year, passed on 7 August 2026.

HMRC have since issued a press release confirming that 436,000 taxpayers filed their first quarterly tax update by the deadline and reminding those who have not submitted their update to do so using HMRC-recognised software.

HMRC’s press release reveals that as of 12 August 2026, over 570,000 taxpayers had signed up for MTD for Income Tax.
In August 2025, based on 2023-24 figures, HMRC estimated that some 864,000 taxpayers would need to sign up from April 2026, meaning that around one third of taxpayers who should have registered for MTD for Income Tax from April 2026 had not signed up.

If you have not yet registered for MTD for Income Tax and are concerned that it may apply to you, contact us as soon as possible so we can help you assess your obligations.

See: https://f.mtr.cool/y6w38xdeik

13/08/2026

In this month's Tax newsletter we take a look at potential future tax changes under new Prime Minister Andy Burnham.

You can read the article here:

Questions over future tax changes under new Prime Minister Andy Burnham. Since becoming Prime Minister, Andy Burnham has made cost-of-living support a key focus.

10/08/2026

The latest annual report from the Charter Stakeholder Group remains highly critical of HMRC's service performance, with scores either stagnant or deteriorating across most standards. Alongside poor scores for responsiveness and ease of use, the report highlights overwhelmingly negative feedback on Making Tax Digital (MTD).

The Charter Stakeholder Group monitors HMRC's performance against the HMRC Charter, a set of service standards. The 2025-26 assessment was based on a survey of 719 taxpayers and agents who were asked to rate HMRC's performance against each standard on a scale of one to 10.

Of the seven charter standards assessed, only one recorded an improved score compared with 2025.

The poor score is a blow to the government that set out a plan to replace a paper-heavy agency with a ‘world-class’ digital-first organisation. Around £7 billion was committed to modernising HMRC’s old computer systems and infrastructure. This would reduce the headcount in customer contact functions and increase compliance team numbers to bring in more revenue. The technology would be able to respond to customers faster and more accurately, reduce the tax gap of about £59 billion and deter fraud.

Unfortunately, the latest report shows HMRC failing on all levels.

If you have any tax concerns, problems implementing MTD or dealing with HMRC, please get in contact. We’d be happy to help.

06/08/2026

The Insolvency Service has released its annual report showing stronger enforcement activity while improving support for people in debt.

Two key takeaways from the report were the increasing use of Artificial Intelligence to tackle abusive phoenixism and continued tackling of COVID-19 fraud.

Overall, the Insolvency Service returned £42.7 million to creditors and the wider economy in 2025-26. It handled 11,668 insolvency cases, processed 70,633 redundancy payments and approved 48,344 Debt Relief Orders.

Enforcement activity also increased with 1,153 directors disqualified for misconduct, an increase of 11%. There are 185 live company investigations, up 39% on the previous year, with 163 criminal prosecutions completed.

The report showed that the Insolvency Service continued to modernise its services, including progress on a new digital Debt Relief Order service, investment in artificial intelligence and automation to improve the customer experience and the rollout of a new case management system to help investigators work more efficiently.

The Insolvency Service’s full report can be found here:

https://f.mtr.cool/engsjpqxtm

28/07/2026

Companies and individuals that are careless or even illegal in their tax affairs need to watch out.

New figures show that HMRC has paid out £1.4 million in rewards to whistleblowers of tax illegality.

A record number of reports were made to HMRC in the 2025-26 tax year, hitting 170,992.

The last Budget saw the government strengthen a reward scheme for tip-offs. Payouts only go to tips that lead HMRC to recover more than £1.5 million in tax. Informants now receive between 15% and 30% of the value of the extra tax collected.

Recent HMRC figures on the tax gap - the difference between the tax owed and the amount actually collected – showed that small businesses made up the largest share of uncollected tax, two-thirds of the £59.2 billion shortfall.

HMRC have also just released a two-minute YouTube video as a ‘general explainer’ on the scheme. It is aimed at employees, family members, friends or acquaintances of high-net-worth individuals or businesses engaged in suspected serious tax evasion or avoidance. It sets out what the scheme is, what rewards eligible informants could receive and how any information provided may help HMRC to tackle the tax gap and fund vital public services.

The video can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wsmzQR-Uhqc

Should you be unsure of your tax position and need advice, please get in contact. We’re here to help.

23/07/2026

Cyber Advisors are offering free 30-minute consultations to help small businesses get started with cybersecurity.

As smaller businesses become more frequently targeted, the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) is reiterating the need for them to be more robust in their approach to digital security.

It’s aware that investing in cyber security can seem more like a costly distraction than a priority for smaller companies as they concentrate on keeping customers happy, managing cash flow and day-to-day business.

The NCSC points to the statistics. In 2025, 65% of medium and 46% of small organisations reported a cyber breach or attack. The problem is that Small to Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) see cybersecurity as too complicated, too expensive and don’t address the real-world risks that small businesses face.

Many Cyber Advisors are now offering a free 30-minute consultation for SMEs that are looking to get started with Cyber Essentials, the government's baseline for cybersecurity.

This no-strings-attached introductory consultation provides businesses with an opportunity to ask questions and get an explanation of how the five steps that make up Cyber Essentials can be applied to your organisation using practical, achievable implementations.

The National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) introduced Cyber Advisors in 2023, a network of cybersecurity consultants who’ve been assured by the NCSC to work specifically with smaller organisations.

More information on the free consultation can be found here: https://f.mtr.cool/ozazhkyvxm

21/07/2026

The government is consulting on potential measures that target Electronic Sales Suppression (ESS).

Proposals include the introduction of new software standards for Point of Sale systems. Electronic Sales Suppression (ESS) involves businesses using software or devices to manipulate Electronic Point of Sale (EPOS) systems to hide transactions and evade tax.

While precise quantitative prevalence statistics are inherently difficult to capture for hidden fraud, ESS has been regarded by HMRC as a growing area of tax evasion.

HMRC have identified that certain individuals and businesses in Electronic Point of Sale (EPOS)/Mobile Point of Sale (MPOS) supply chains are developing or modifying POS systems to suppress sales to facilitate tax evasion. HMRC believe that ESS is more prevalent in small retail, takeaway and hospitality businesses.

The government is proposing to introduce software standards for the EPOS and MPOS sector, consisting of a set of uniform rules, protocols and compliance requirements to ensure that every system records sales and financial data accurately, securely and in a way that cannot be easily tampered with or manipulated.

The proposed measures include requiring an unalterable and complete transaction log that contains details of every individual transaction and adjustment, indelibly linked together in an encrypted chain using the Standard Audit File for Tax (SAF-T) format to store sales records.

The government would also establish a register of EPOS/MPOS systems sold, transferred, or used in the UK. A certification system would show whether the software complies with the new standards. It would also make it compulsory for small retail, takeaway and hospitality sectors to use compliant EPOS/MPOS systems to record all sales.