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Should Tax and National Insurance be merged?
Earlier in 2016 the Office for Tax Simplification (OTS) published a report to government regarding the possibility of aligning income tax and National Insurance contributions. The executive summary sets out seven key steps towards closer alignment: moving to an annual, cumulative and aggregate basis for NICs basing employers NICs on whole payroll costs and renaming…
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Grant Funds for Warwickshire Businesses
Warwickshire County Council have recently launched a further round of Grant Funding, as part of their “Small Grants Programme” there is up to £600,000 available to small enterprises across Warwickshire over the next 2 years. The funding is part of a £2 million package of business loans and grants agreed by the County Council to…
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Can Christmas Parties & Gifts be Tax Free?
Christmas Party Provision of a Christmas party is a non-taxable benefit for employees so long as the total cost of the function is no more than £150 per head. If the cost exceeds £150 the whole cost is taxable, not just the excess above £150. Where there is more than one annual event, there is…
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Are you aware of the Bribery Act?
A recent report about the awareness and impact of the Bribery Act 2010 among smaller firms published by the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) and the Department for Business (BIS) reveals that a third of smaller firms have either not heard of the Bribery Act or are unaware of their liability for the failure to prevent…
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Chancellor’s last Autumn Statement
On Wednesday the Chancellor, Philip Hammond, presented his first and what will prove to be his last Autumn Statement to Parliament. Many of the announcements had been widely leaked to the press in the weeks running up to the Statement but the news that the annual Budget was to be moved to November from 2017…
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VAT: deregistration enquiries reap rewards
Recently we have noticed that there appears to be a co-ordinated strategy by HMRC to review the national option to tax records whenever a business deregisters from VAT. Where the business had a property subject to an option to tax HMRC are looking into the reason for deregistration. Quite often the business will have been…
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Charity Advertising-VAT relief
A journey through Time and Space! The reissue of VAT Notice 701/58 “Charity advertising and goods connected with collecting donations is a welcome reminder of the rules for this valuable relief. Zero rate VAT is available for supplies of all types of advertising time and space to charities in any medium which communicates with the public.…
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Claiming VAT on pre-registration costs
Input VAT HMRC have backed down on their (unannounced) apparent policy change for recovering pre-registration input tax. HMRC had been issuing letters threatening assessments where assets had been on hand prior to the date of VAT registration for a reduction in the input tax to reflect that use. Indeed some assessments had been issued! There…
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VAT Update – Charities & Not for Profit
Level playing field… Charities and Not for Profit businesses providing care and welfare services are increasingly being depended upon to take up the role previously held by the public sector of caring for the most vulnerable in society but it would be wrong to assume that all of these providers benefit from the same VAT…
Last week, our trainees took part in an internal audit training session designed to strengthen their technical knowledge and support their professional development. While gaining practical skills was the key objective, we also wanted to make the learning experience engaging and enjoyable, so we incorporated some games. At Burgis & …
October 14, 2026
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