Our top 7 tips for how to give yourself a clean tax bill of health.

  1. Train….. yourself to claim tax relief for everything you are entitled to:

Employees:

Self-employed:

Directors:

  • A director can reclaim all home working expenses from their company (rather than making a claim on the tax return), provided that they perform some or all of their duties from home. See Working from home (directors)
  1. Exercise…all available allowances
  1.  Jump....into tax efficient benefits

An employer can provide certain benefits tax free including:

  • A mobile phone
  • A bicycle and safety equipment
  • Annual parties and functions
  • "Trivial" gifts & benefits. They also apply to directors but are limited to benefits worth £300 or less per year.
  • Recreational benefits. An employer can provide a workplace gym if it is available to all staff.
  • Tax free childcare, or a workplace nursery
  • £4 per week for homeworking 

See Tax free benefits and perks

  1. Work as a team
  • You can employ your spouse or other family members (including children) in your business; the amounts must be reasonable for the work undertaken and the expense must be "wholly and exclusively incurred" for the purposes of the business. See Wages: spouse or family
  • You might be able to create new share classes in a family company in order to split dividend income with a spouse or close family members. See ABC or alphabet shares: family companies
  • Family investment companies can be used for wealth protection, income tax and inheritance tax planning, as can family trusts.
  1. Give up..some of your assets and income
  • You can reduce IHT by making lifetime gifts within the annual exempt amount and as normal expenditure out of income. See IHT: gifts
  • You can claim higher rate relief on charitable donations. See Gift aid 
  • Gifts of trading assets may be eligible for CGT gift relief
  1. Get married.

And finally……

  1. Reduce your sugar intake

We all know that sugar is bad for our health but since the introduction of the sugar tax in April 2018 it is bad for our tax health too with many retailers passing on the cost of the sugar tax  to the consumer.

Last time:

8 things I wish I had known about Making Tax Digital for VAT

And the time before that:

8 new tax promises on Boris' list