Barnowl Bookkeeping - Jo Waterfield

25/06/2026

HMRC are looking into monthly tax payments for those filing self assessments (starting in the 2029-2030 tax year). Follow this link to my website to read the article:

In a radical move, HMRC plans to end twice-yearly tax bills for the seven million PAYE taxpayers inside self assessment, with monthly ‘payday’ payments Following the introduction of mandatory Making Tax Digital for Income Tax for earners down to as low as £20,000 within the next two years, the ...

20/08/2024

HMRC Scam Letter Warning
I'm frequently warning my clients, friends and family about scam phone calls and emails. I confidently say "HMRC will only ever contact you by post".
Unfortunately scammers have now realised this. HMRC are warning that scammers are sending letters with the HMRC logo demanding detailed financial information including PDFs' of bank statements and digital copies of passports and driving licences.
The letters state the reasons for all is sensitive data is a ‘government initiative aimed at verifying declared income’ to ‘prevent tax evasion and tax fraud’.
It all sounds very convincing.
If you do received a letter from HMRC demanding sensitive data check the email address or address they are asking the data to be sent to. The current scam letters demand the information is being sent to the email address "[email protected]". HMRC are stressing that it is NOT an HMRC email address.
If in doubt contact HMRC directly using the helpline numbers available on the HMRC website.
Stay safe!

15/03/2024

Making Tax Digital for the Self Employed and Landlords

Making tax digital for the self employed and landlords (MTD for ITSA) is now looming on the horizon.

The rollout so far is:
2026 - Start of MTD for ITSA for those with an income over £50,000
2027 -Start of MTD for ITSA for those with an income over £30,000

What does it mean?

If your income falls within these requirements and you fulfil the enrolment criteria you will have to :
• Hold digital records of your income and expenses
• Submit these records every quarter using HMRC compatible accounting software (or bridging software).
• Submit a final declaration at the end of the year (this will include other types of income such as savings interest and dividends).
• Do this for each self employed business you have.
• Have separate software for each business.

HMRC state that implementing Making Tax Digital for The Self Employed and Landlords should help to reduce the errors in Self-Assesments. This is because quarterly submissions will ensure business owners keep more on top of their administration.

As of next month HMRC are opening up the testing phase to the real world. They are asking agents like myself to sign clients up. I am not pushing any of my self-employed clients to sign up to this. However if you would like to be involved in the testing using your business I’m very happy to help.

I myself will be involved in the next phase of testing using my own business in 2025. Therefore I’ll be ready to help when MTD for ITSA goes live in 2026.

https://barnowl-bookkeeping.co.uk/self-employed-bookkeeper/
https://www.gov.uk/guidance/using-making-tax-digital-for-income-tax
Barnowl Bookkeeping is located near King’s Lynn in Norfolk within easy reach of Swaffham, Fakenham, Downham Market, Wisbech and the North Norfolk coast.

Call now to connect with business.

08/03/2024

The Budget - Tax Cuts for the Self Employed

Tax Cuts for the Self Employed have figured in the last two budgets. Let's look at what the tax cuts mean to the self employed entrepreneur.

National Insurance contributions are the chosen vehicle for tax cuts. In the Autumn Statement the government reduced Class 4 NICs from 9% to 8%. In addition they stopped the requirement to pay class 2 NICs. These changes come into effect in April 2024.

Yesterday Jeremy Hunt went on to further reduce Class 4 to NICs from 8% to 6%.

So what does this mean? Class 2 NICs are the method the government has used for the self employed to have entitlement to state pension, employment and support allowance and other contribution based benefits. When self employed profits passed the threshold of £6,725 Class 2 NICs became payable. Added to this self employed with a profit below this threshold could pay voluntarily to gain access to the benefits.

Fortunately, although Class 2 NICS are no longer, the self employed will still to have access to these benefits.
https://www.gov.uk/national-insurance/what-national-insurance-is-for

Giving a like for like comparison of the deductions for NICs before and after the Autumn and Spring NIC cuts:

If you make a self employed profit of £30,000

How much extra money in your pocket : almost £700

Make sure you’re not paying too much tax! Barnowl Bookkeeping is here to help with self assessment, VAT, CIS and payroll. Located near King’s Lynn near to Wisbech, Downham Market, Swaffham, Fakenham and the North Norfolk Coast. Click the link for more information.
https://barnowl-bookkeeping.co.uk

This is somewhat embarrassing, isn’t it? It seems we can’t find what you’re looking for. Perhaps searching can help. Search for:

20/02/2024

Double Cab Pick Ups Guidance Has Changed (Again!)

Guidance released by HMRC on 12 February 2024 : As from 01 July 2024 double cab pick ups (DCPUs) with a payload of 1 tonne or more were to be treated as cars (not goods vehicles) for both capital allowance and benefit in kind purposes.

On 19 February the government announced that it is withdrawing the guidelines on the afternoon of 19/02/24 . DCPUs will now continue to be treated as goods vehicles for tax purposes.

Nigel Huddleston, Financial Secretary to the Treasury said ““We will change the law at the next available Finance Bill in order to avoid tax outcomes that could inadvertently harm farmers, van drivers and the UK’s economy.”

There will no longer be an increase in the benefit in kind for private use of a double cab pick up. The capital allowances available in the first year of use will not be reduced.

This move also helps keep the tax system a little more simple as the withdrawn guidance for double cab pick ups had not changed their status as a goods vehicle for VAT purposes.

The arrangements that HMRC had announced on 12 Feb 2024 to help DCPU owners adapt to the updated guidance are also now redundant.

DCPUs with a payload of less than one tonne are to continue to be treated as cars.

For further information refer to the HMRC website.

Barnowl Bookkeeping is here to help you with your business. Based near King’s Lynn with easy access to Downham Market, Wisbech, Swaffham and the Norfolk Coast.

Go to www.barnowl-bookkeeping.co.uk for more information

19/02/2024

Are you paying Too much Tax?

According to a recent survey of 500 musicians and bands by Pirate (pirate.com) 40% of artists are paying too much tax.

Money spent which should have been declared as an expense is simply not being declared. This is deemed to be due to a lack of understanding of tax law.

Only 30% of artists had professional help from a bookkeeper or accountant in preparing their tax returns. 26% of artists surveyed said that they worry about money on a daily basis.

Barnowl Bookkeeping are based near King’s Lynn in Norfolk within easy reach of Wisbech, Downham Market and Swaffham.

We take pride in keeping your business compliant and prevent you from paying too much tax.

19/10/2023

Are dividends still tax efficient?
I’m really interested in this, so I’ve been thinking about this, had a dig and thought I’d share with you what I’ve found.
This is an important question for those of you who are company directors or have employees with shares. Historically dividends were generally seen as a tax efficient way of employee shareholders (including directors) taking money out of a company.
HMRC have made changes to both corporation tax and personal tax which are narrowing the gap. If you company is going to make a profit is it more tax efficient to have a bonus in your pay packet or issue dividends?
If you have a bonus:
There could be a combination of additional personal tax and NI and employers NI (depending on your gross salary). The personal tax allowance is frozen for 23-24 at £12,570.
The company does not pay corporation tax on the bonus.
If you take dividends:
The dividend you take will be net of corporation tax.
HMRC have increased the corporation tax rate from 19% for profits over 50k to 25% with marginal relief up to £250k (so there effectively is a sliding scale of CT rates between 50K and 250K profits).
For the tax year 23/24 HMRC have reduced the tax allowance on dividends to £1000. For a basic rate tax payer (£12,750 to £50,270) the tax on dividends is 8.75%. Higher rate tax is at 33.75% (£50,271 to £125,140) and additional rate at 39.35%.
The wonderful Stephen Relf at Croner-I has done some work on this and has produced a very useful sample calculation. I won’t bore you with the details, here is the summary:
Company Profit £500K (before bonus paid)
Bonus / Dividend Available £40K (before CT / Employers NI)
For someone falling in the Higher Rate tax band he calculated:
23/24 the dividend route gave a tax advantage of £173.
22/23 the dividend route gave a tax advantage of £2138.
In conclusion Stephen Relf states that much depends on individual circumstances but there are broad principals in mind, that dividends are more likely to be tax efficient where the company continues to pay CT at 19% or where the recipient is a basic tax payer.
For further reading please refer to Croner-I Extracting Profits, Paying and Receiving Dividends.

19/10/2023

Last Thursday I was thrilled to help out at a charity fund raiser held by Starlings of Swaffham. Raising money for the Norwich branch of Samaritans. A whopping £2,300 raised in just one night.

It was wonderful to see the local business community pull together to help. Kim Starling did a fantastic job of organising and hosting. George Hotel Swaffham provided the banqueting suite and staffed the evening. Dee of Starlings did some amazing flower arrangements which were raffled along with lots of raffle prizes kindly donated by local businesses.

The theme was male su***de. The statistics are chilling : In 2021 : 4,129 men committed su***de (3/4 of the total number of su***des), the worst hit age range being 50-54 years (ons.gov.uk).

The lovely Ben Handford of the Samaritans gave a talk of his personal experience which was deeply saddening. He gave some really helpful tips:

If someone you know says or appears to be feeling down
Do encourage them to talk
Be empathetic - "that sounds awful" "I'm so sorry to hear that"
Ask open questions - "what's been happening" "is everything ok"
Don't shut them down - "At least you're not in Gaza" is not a helpful response (even though it's truthful)

The Samaritans have helplines open 24 hours a day, 365 days a year and are totally funded by donations. Their phone number is 116123

The Samaritans need volunteers. In Norwich the currently have 200 listening volunteers helping people they need 300.

The photo is of Ben, Kim and Dee with some of the lovely raffle prizes donated by local businesses.