In a press release issued 10 September 2020, the Department for Health and Social Care has reminded affected businesses that they have a legal obligation to record the contact details of their customers, visitors and staff.

Affected concerns in England should note:

• businesses and other public settings where people meet socially including hospitality, close contact and leisure venues must record contact details of customers, visitors and staff on their premises to tackle the spread of coronavirus
• details must be stored for 21 days and shared with NHS Test and Trace, if requested
• fixed penalties will apply to organisations that do not comply

Premises and venues across England like pubs, restaurants, hairdressers and cinemas must have a system in place by law to record contact details of their customers, visitors and staff in the latest move to break the chains of transmission of coronavirus.

These businesses and organisations had been advised to collect and share data, with many effectively doing so, but following the recent move to ban social gatherings of more than 6 people, the data collection programme is now formally mandated and has applied since 18 September.

Please note regional variations in these regulations may apply.

Last month the Treasury announced further support for businesses adversely affected by lockdown in local areas to control local outbreaks. Local Authorities will be funded to pay the grants now offered.

Businesses in England required to close

Businesses in England required to close due to local lockdowns or targeted restrictions will now be able to receive grants worth up to £1,500 every three weeks, To be eligible for the grant, a business must have been required to close due to local COVID-19 restrictions. Grants will be paid out every three weeks businesses are required to close. During each three week period:

• Largest businesses will receive £1,500
• Smaller businesses will receive £1,000.

H M Treasury also released the following notes:

• any businesses still closed at a national level (e.g. nightclubs), will not be eligible
• if a business occupies premises with a rateable value less than £51,000 or occupies a property or part of a property subject to an annual rent or mortgage payment of less than £51,000, it will receive £1000
• if a business occupies premises with a rateable value of exactly £51,000 or above or occupies a property or part of a property subject to an annual rent or mortgage payment of exactly £51,000 or above, it will receive £1500
• Local authorities will also receive an additional 5% top up amount of business support funding to enable them to help other businesses affected by closures which may not be on the business rates list. Payments made to businesses from this discretionary fund can be any amount up to £1500 and may be less than £1000 in some cases.
• Local authorities will be responsible for distributing the grants to businesses in circumstances where they are closed due to local interventions
• further eligibility criteria may be determined by Local authorities
• as with other COVID-19 business grants, local grants to closed businesses will be treated as taxable income

Making a claim

Contact your Local authority to see if you are eligible. And please note, the eligibility of businesses not on the business rates list will likely be discretionary so an early call to clarify your position may be beneficial.

The Chancellor, Rishi Sunak, has delivered a statement to the House of Commons outlining plans to help protect jobs across the UK whilst the country faces a resurgence of coronavirus and a winter of uncertainty. The Chancellor was facing mounting pressure to reveal future changes as many of the schemes and reliefs previously announced are coming to an end including the furlough scheme at the end of October.

It has also been confirmed that the Budget that was expected to be delivered in the autumn will now take place next year. The measures announced today are more clearly focused on keeping the economy ticking over during the coming weeks and months.

The main focus of the Chancellor’s announcements is a new Job Support Scheme and an extension to the Self Employment Income Support Scheme as well as additional flexibilities for businesses who have borrowed money as a result of the pandemic.

Details of these announcements follow:

Job Support Scheme

• A new 6-month scheme starting from 1 November 2020.
• This scheme has been designed to support viable jobs and employees must work at least one-third of their hours, paid as normal, in order to qualify for the scheme. The government and employer will then each cover one-third of any remaining hours the employee is not working.
• Employees will therefore forego one-third of their pay for the hours that they have not been working. This means that employees working the minimum one-third of their hours will still receive at least 77% of their pay.
• The level of the grant will be calculated based on an employee’s usual salary but subject to a cap.
• The Chancellor said that the scheme will be open to all small and medium-sized businesses, but larger businesses will only qualify when their turnover has fallen as a result of the pandemic.
• You can still use this scheme even if you have not previously participated in the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme.
• The previously announced Job Retention Bonus, allowing qualifying businesses to claim a £1,000 for each CJRS participating employee, will remain. Employers can claim both the Job Retention Bonus and funding through the Job Support Scheme.

Self-Employment Income Support Scheme extension

• The Chancellor announced additional help for the self-employed based on similar terms and conditions as the new Jobs Support Scheme.
• The extended scheme will apply for 6 months from 1 November 2020 with an initial taxable grant made available to those who continue to trade and are currently eligible for SEISS.
• The initial lump sum will cover three months of profits from 1 November 2020 calculated as 20% of average monthly profits, up to a total of £1,875.
• An additional second grant will be available from 1 February 2021 to 30 April 2021, but the level of this second grant amount is subject to review.

Loan deadlines extended

• Businesses that have taken out a Bounce Back Loan will be able to benefit from a new Pay As You Grow flexible repayment system.
• This will include an extension in the loan term from six to ten years. There will also be new options for interest-only repayments for up to six months as well as payment holidays.
• The Coronavirus Business Interruption Loans will also have their Government guarantee extended to ten years.
• The deadline for applying for all the Government’s coronavirus loan schemes will be standardised and pushed back until 30 November 2020.
• A new successor loan guarantee programme is also expected to be introduced early next year.

New VAT Payment Scheme

• Businesses had the option to defer the payment of any VAT liabilities due between 20 March 2020 and 30 June 2020.
• The deferred payment was due to be paid in full to HMRC by 31 March 2021.
• The Chancellor has now confirmed that businesses will instead be able to make 11 smaller interest-free payments during the 2021-22 financial year.

Self-Assessment payment deadlines

• Taxpayers that were due to make their second payment on account for the 2019-20 tax year had the option to have the payment due date deferred until 31 January 2021.
• It will now be possible to benefit from a separate additional 12-month extension from HMRC on the “Time to Pay” self-service facility for this payment and also for payments due in January 2021 extending the deadline until January 2022.

VAT reduction for hospitality and tourism sector

• The VAT reduction that was announced as part of the Summer Economic update was scheduled to end on 12th January 2021.
• The end date for the VAT cut has now been extended until 31 March 2021 to give the affected sectors more time to adjust to the difficult trading conditions. This means that VAT charged on food, accommodation and attractions (such as eat-in or takeaway food in restaurants, cafes and pubs, cinemas, theme parks and zoos) will see VAT reduced from 20% to 5% until the end of March 2021.

The new incentives announced today should be welcomed as the government continues to try and cope with this unprecedented pandemic. Managing the economic ramifications are causing great difficulties for many people and businesses across the country. These steps, at least, give affected businesses and individuals a degree of certainty as to the level of government assistance available to them throughout the coming months.

As more details emerge on the various schemes announced today we will update you further.

 

1 September 2020 – Due date for Corporation Tax due for the year ended 30 November 2019.

19 September 2020 – PAYE and NIC deductions due for month ended 5 September 2020. (If you pay your tax electronically the due date is 22 September 2020)

19 September 2020 – Filing deadline for the CIS300 monthly return for the month ended 5 September 2020.

19 September 2020 – CIS tax deducted for the month ended 5 September 2020 is payable by today.

1 October 2020 – Due date for Corporation Tax due for the year ended 31 December 2019.

19 October 2020 – PAYE and NIC deductions due for month ended 5 October 2020. (If you pay your tax electronically the due date is 22 October 2020.)

19 October 2020 – Filing deadline for the CIS300 monthly return for the month ended 5 October 2020.

19 October 2020 – CIS tax deducted for the month ended 5 October 2020 is payable by today.

31 October 2020 – Latest date you can file a paper version of your 2020 self-assessment tax return.

From the 26 March 2020, the following rights of landlords and tenants regarding eviction apply. A summary of the provisions is set out below:

• The Coronavirus Act 2020 protects most tenants and secure licensees in the private and social rented sectors by putting measures in place that say where landlords do need to issue notices seeking possession, the notice period must be for three months. Landlords can choose to give a longer notice period. Any claims in the system or about to go into the system will be affected by the stay of possession hearings and orders. Court actions to evict a tenant will not be progressed before 20 September 2020.
• At the expiry of the three-month notice, a landlord cannot force a tenant to leave their home without a court order. When the three-month notice period expires, a landlord would still need to take court action if the tenant was unable to move.

The government strongly advise landlords not to commence or continue eviction proceedings during this challenging time without a very good reason.

Your UK residence status affects whether you need to pay tax in the UK on your foreign income. For example, non-residents only pay tax on their UK income – they do not pay UK tax on their foreign income. Whereas UK residents normally pay UK tax on all their income, whether it’s from the UK or abroad. However, there are special rules for UK residents whose permanent home or place of domicile is abroad.

The following notes reproduced from the GOV.UK website may help you to decide if you are resident or non-resident in the UK for tax purposes:

Work out your residence status

Whether you are UK resident usually depends on how many days you spend in the UK in the tax year (6 April to 5 April the following year).

You are automatically resident if either:

• you spent 183 or more days in the UK in the tax year
• your only home was in the UK – you must have owned, rented or lived in it for at least 91 days in total – and you spent at least 30 days there in the tax year

You’re automatically non-resident if either:

• you spent fewer than 16 days in the UK (or 46 days if you have not been classed as UK resident for the 3 previous tax years)
• you work abroad full-time (averaging at least 35 hours a week) and spent fewer than 91 days in the UK, of which no more than 30 were spent working

As with all tax rules there are grey areas. If you have any doubts regarding your tax status please contact us so we can help you decide.

If you are presently registered for VAT but your turnover has dropped below £83,000 you could deregister for VAT. However, you do not have to deregister.

Disadvantages and advantages of deregistration

• If you buy significant amounts of goods and services that include a VAT charge, then if you deregister you will not be able to recover any VAT charged.
• If most of your sales are zero-rated or most of your customers are registered for VAT and can recover the VAT you charge, deregistering means you will lose any recovery of input VAT on purchases and your customers will gain no advantage.
• If, however, you sell to the general public who cannot reclaim the VAT you charge, and if the VAT on your purchases is not significant, then deregistering could provide an opportunity to reduce your prices and regain a competitive advantage.

The process of deregistration is quite straightforward, but it is worth considering any knock-on effects before taking this option. Please call as we can help you crunch the necessary numbers.

If you are faced with making employees redundant, the terms that determine the amount payable may be written into your staff contracts of employment. Otherwise, employees will normally be entitled to statutory redundancy pay if they have been working with you for two years or more.
Entitlement is usually based on:
• half a week’s pay for each full year you were under 22 years of age,
• one week’s pay for each full year you were 22 or older, but under 41
• one and half week’s pay for each full year you were 41 or older
Length of service is capped at 20 years.
Your weekly pay is the average you earned per week over the 12 weeks before the day you got your redundancy notice.
Coronavirus furlough scheme
If an employee was furloughed prior to being made redundant the average weekly pay is their normal wage rather than any reduced amount they may have been paid during furlough.
According to HMRC sources, if you were made redundant on or after 6 April 2020, your weekly pay is capped at £538 and the maximum statutory redundancy pay you can get is £16,140. If you were made redundant before 6 April 2020, these amounts will be lower.
Also, please note that employees are not entitled to statutory redundancy pay if you offer to keep them on or if you offer suitable alternative work which an employee refuses without good reason.
Take advice
If you are faced with making staff redundant you should consider taking advice to ensure the process is dealt with correctly.

 

1 August 2020 – Due date for Corporation Tax due for the year ended 31 October 2019.

19 August 2020 – PAYE and NIC deductions due for month ended 5 August 2020. (If you pay your tax electronically the due date is 22 August 2020)

19 August 2020 – Filing deadline for the CIS300 monthly return for the month ended 5 August 2020.

19 August 2020 – CIS tax deducted for the month ended 5 August 2020 is payable by today.

1 September 2020 – Due date for Corporation Tax due for the year ended 30 November 2019.

19 September 2020 – PAYE and NIC deductions due for month ended 5 September 2020. (If you pay your tax electronically the due date is 22 September 2020)

19 September 2020 – Filing deadline for the CIS300 monthly return for the month ended 5 September 2020.

19 September 2020 – CIS tax deducted for the month ended 5 September 2020 is payable by today.

 

In an attempt to address the financial difficulties of businesses in the hospitality and tourism industries, Rishi Sunak also announced a range of VAT reductions on selected supplies for these sectors.

Summary of the changes are set out below:

Hospitality

When you supply food and non-alcoholic beverages for consumption on your premises, between 15 July 2020 and 12 January 2021 you will only need to charge 5% VAT.

You will also be able to charge the reduced 5% rate of VAT on your supplies of hot takeaway food and hot takeaway non-alcoholic drinks.

Hotel and holiday accommodation

You will also benefit from the temporary reduced rate if you:

• supply sleeping accommodation in a hotel or similar establishment
• make certain supplies of holiday accommodation
• charge fees for caravan pitches and associated facilities
• charge fees for tent pitches or camping facilities

Admission to certain attractions

If you charge a fee for admission to certain attractions where the supplies are currently standard rated, you will only need to charge the 5% reduced rate of VAT between 15 July 2020 and 12 January 2021.

However, if the fee you charge for admission is currently exempt, that will take precedence and your supplies will not qualify for the reduced rate.

Changes to your accounts’ software

In most cases these changes should be fairly easy to accommodate in your accounts’ software. If you are experiencing difficulties in this regard please call, we can help.