As we are approaching the annual holiday season it would seem to be a suitable time to set out employees’ rights to receive holiday pay.
Almost all workers are legally entitled to 5.6 weeks’ paid holiday per year (known as statutory leave entitlement or annual leave). An employer can include bank holidays as part of statutory annual leave.
Most workers who work a 5-day week must receive at least 28 days paid annual leave per year. This is the equivalent of 5.6 weeks of holiday.
Part-time workers are entitled to less paid holiday than full-time workers. They are entitled to at least 5.6 weeks of paid holiday but this amounts to fewer than 28 days because they work fewer hours per week.
Statutory paid holiday entitlement is limited to 28 days, and so staff working 6 days a week are still only entitled to 28 days’ paid holiday.
Bank holidays or public holidays do not have to be given as paid leave. An employer can choose to include bank holidays as part of a worker’s statutory annual leave. An employer can also choose to offer more leave than the legal minimum. They don’t have to apply all the rules that apply to statutory leave to the extra leave. For example, a worker might need to be employed for a certain amount of time before they become entitled to the additional entitlement.
Paid annual leave is a legal right that an employer must provide. If a worker thinks their right to leave and pay are not being met there are a number of ways to resolve the dispute.

If you employ students to manage your staff needs over the summer break period, you will need to add them to your payroll and apply PAYE and NIC rules.
Students should be advised that they will pay tax and NIC if:
• they earn more than £1,042 a month on average, and
• pay NIC if they earn more than £166 a week.
Students can also apply for a possible tax refund if they work for part of a tax year.
Students who normally live and study in the UK but work abroad during the holidays will need to pay:
• UK tax on anything they earn above their Personal Allowance, currently £12,500, and
• National Insurance if they work for a UK employer.
If you work for a foreign employer you don’t need to pay National Insurance in the UK, but you might have to pay contributions in the country you’re working in.

1 May 2019 – Due date for Corporation Tax due for the year ended 30 July 2018.

19 May 2019 – PAYE and NIC deductions due for month ended 5 May 2019. (If you pay your tax electronically the due date is 22 May 2019)

19 May 2019 – Filing deadline for the CIS300 monthly return for the month ended 5 May 2019.

19 May 2019 – CIS tax deducted for the month ended 5 May 2019 is payable by today.

31 May 2019 – Ensure all employees have been given their P60s for the 2018-19 tax year.

1 June 2019 – Due date for Corporation Tax due for the year ended 31 August 2018.

19 June 2019 – PAYE and NIC deductions due for month ended 5 June 2019. (If you pay your tax electronically the due date is 22 June 2019)

19 June 2019 – Filing deadline for the CIS300 monthly return for the month ended 5 June 2019.

19 June 2019 – CIS tax deducted for the month ended 5 June 2019 is payable by today.

If you are an employer, you have a statutory duty to provide your employees with a copy of their P60 (pay and tax details for 2018-19) on or before the end of May 2019.

If you distribute P60s and then discover that changes need to be made you will need to give employees a replacement P60 – a paper or electronic version – or a letter confirming the change.

This requirement is additional to your other filing deadlines related to your payroll and later in the year you will need to deal with the reporting of expenses and benefits to HMRC.

If we take care of your payroll for you, these matters can be dealt with in a timely manner. If we don’t take care of your payroll, and you would like to be relieved of this tiresome chore, please call so we can discuss your needs.

On the face of it, this sounds implausible. How can you change your will if you have died?

In reality, as long as any beneficiaries left worse off after any change, agree, you can change a person’s will after their death.

Any change must be completed within two years of the death.

The circumstances that such a change can be agreed are to:

• Reduce the amount of Capital Gains Tax or Inheritance Tax payable,
• Provide for someone who was left out of the will,
• Move the deceased’s assets into a trust,
• Clear up any uncertainty over the will.

Executors will need to make a variation to the will to accomplish the above, this will involve:

• Preparing a variation document that satisfies certain legal requirements, and
• If there is more Inheritance Tax to pay, a copy of the variation must be sent to HMRC within six months of making it. This condition does not apply if the variation does not change the amount of Inheritance Tax payable.

This ability to change a will after death can often resolve family disputes if the affected beneficiaries agree. However, the process is best managed by a professional advisor to ensure that all the formalities are dealt with correctly.

You will pay Scottish Income Tax if you live in Scotland, Income Tax if you live in England or Northern Ireland and the Welsh Income Tax if you live in Wales.

At present, the only regional variations under the control of the Scottish or Welsh governments are the rates of Income Tax charged.

For 2019-20, the rates set by the Welsh Government are the same as those in England and Northern Ireland. Scottish Income Tax rates have more bands and the higher and top rate are 1% higher than the rest of the UK.

These differences do open up planning opportunities if you live and work in the border areas between England and Scotland.

As you pay tax at Scottish or other UK rates based on where you live, you could choose to live in England and work in Scotland if you pay tax at the higher rates. Obviously, there are many other factors that you will want to consider when choosing where you set up home, but if the regional Income Tax rate differentials start to widen, the ability to reduce your Income Tax burden may become more of a deciding issue.

The expenses you claim against your property income will need to follow the usual HMRC ruling that the costs must be incurred wholly and exclusively for the purpose of renting out the property.

An example set out on the Gov.uk website illustrates the point:

If you buy a new vacuum cleaner for your own home, and also use it to clean your rental property between tenants, you can’t claim the cost of the vacuum cleaner as an expense against your rental income. However, you could claim the cost of any cleaning products you bought specifically for cleaning the rental property.

Where costs are incurred partly for your rental business and partly for some other purpose you may be able to claim a proportion of that cost if that part can be separately identified as being incurred wholly and exclusively for the purposes of the property rental business.

Expenses you can and can’t claim are summarised below.

Expenses you can claim include:

• Mortgage interest – a proportion of this cost is now limited to basic rate Income Tax relief,
• General maintenance and repairs to the property, but not improvements (such as replacing a laminate kitchen worktop with a granite worktop)
• Water rates, council tax, gas and electricity
• Insurance, such as landlords’ policies for buildings, contents and public liability
• Costs of services, including the wages of gardeners and cleaners
• Letting agent fees and management fees
• Legal fees for lets of a year or less, or for renewing a lease for less than 50 years
• Accountant’s fees
• Rents (if you’re sub-letting), ground rents and service charges
• Direct costs such as phone calls, stationery and advertising for new tenants
• Vehicle running costs (only the proportion used for your rental business) including mileage rate deductions for business motoring costs

Expenses you can’t claim a deduction for include:

• The full amount of your mortgage payment – only the interest element of your mortgage payment can be offset against your income,
• Private telephone calls – you can only claim for the cost of calls relating to your property rental business,
• Clothing – for example if you bought a suit to wear to a meeting relating to your property rental business, you can’t claim for the cost as wearing the suit is partly for your rental business and partly to keep you warm – no identifiable part is for your property rental business,
• Personal expenses – you can’t claim for any expense that was not incurred solely for your property rental business.

Making tax digital – Download our helpsheets:

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Digital record keeping click here

Detailed digital record keeping requirements click here

Presentation click here

1 April 2019 – Due date for Corporation Tax due for the year ended 30 June 2018.
19 April 2019 – PAYE and NIC deductions due for month ended 5 April 2019. (If you pay your tax electronically the due date is 22 April 2019)
19 April 2019 – Filing deadline for the CIS300 monthly return for the month ended 5 April 2019.
19 April 2019 – CIS tax deducted for the month ended 5 April 2019 is payable by today.
30 April 2019 – 2017-18 tax returns filed after this date will be subject to an additional £10 per day late filing penalty.
1 May 2018 – Due date for Corporation Tax due for the year ended 30 July 2017.
19 May 2019 – PAYE and NIC deductions due for month ended 5 May 2019. (If you pay your tax electronically the due date is 22 May 2019)
19 May 2019 – Filing deadline for the CIS300 monthly return for the month ended 5 May 2019.
19 May 2019 – CIS tax deducted for the month ended 5 May 2019 is payable by today.
31 May 2019 – Ensure all employees have been given their P60s for the 2018-19 tax year.

Sole traders
If you are self-employed, and obliged to submit a self-assessment tax return, you must keep your tax records for at least five years after the 31 January submission deadline of the relevant tax year. For example, if you submit your 2018-19 tax return online on or before 31 January 2020, you must keep your records until at least the end of January 2025. Records for this purpose include those relating to personal income etc.
If you send your tax return more than four years after the deadline, you will need to keep your records for fifteen months after you submit your tax return.
If you keep your tax records on a computer, make sure you have sufficient backups of your data to meet these requirements. If you change software during the record retention period, you may need to print relevant reports if you are unable to maintain access to data backups.
Limited companies
If you run your business as a limited company you must keep records for six years from the end of the last company financial year they relate to, or longer if:
• they show a transaction that covers more than one of the company’s accounting periods,
• the company has bought something that it expects to last more than six years, like equipment or machinery,
• you sent your Company Tax return late, or
• HMRC has started a compliance check into your Company Tax return.
If you are not in business, the minimum period is 22 months after the 31 January filing deadline and at least 15 months after filing if later.
GDPR
The new data protection regulations require that you don’t keep the personal data of your customers, staff or other contacts beyond the date required by law that they be retained.
Keeping this data online or in dusty boxes indefinitely is no longer an option, you risk heavy fines if you do.
Most online document management systems now have a filter process that will help you manage this search and destroy requirement. As for the storage boxes, you will have to resort to a more hands on approach.