Hello,

It is almost the end of another tax year, yet this week has pretty much been taken up in answering queries on the COVID-19 financial support measures. We have updates for Employers, Directors and for VAT.

Many people are asking whether they should include overtime in the wages calculations under the COVID-19 Employee Job Retention scheme. We await clear guidance from HMRC to confirm the rules. We have set out what is included as wages in our guide. Do check it out.

Amid claims that the virus is going to result in record numbers of small business failures, last Saturday new measures were announced in relaxing the director's wrongful trading rules. This should provide comfort for some companies. Another query has been in respect of issues for sole director companies who remunerate mainly by dividend; we have tried to address these queries and many more in our COVID-19 guides for Directors. 

It is really sad that some people have decided to market the abusive use of the business financial support measures such as tax avoidance schemes. HMRC has already issued a spotlight on this topic. 

It looks as if many of us will have to simply hunker down and carry on as best we can for the next couple of weeks or more. We are working on some new CPDs and we include links to some last-minute, end-of-year tax planning guides if you would like to read about something other than the Coronavirus.

If you have any tax-specific queries, please post them up to our sister site, details are here: www.VtaxP.co.uk

Back soon

Nichola Ross Martin FCA CTA (Fellow) Tax Director

www.rossmartin.co.uk

Your Virtual Tax Partner® online PRACTICAL support for accountants, tax advisers BY accountants and tax advisers.

Quick news & guides (freeview)

COVID-19: Tracker
Start here to track key measures and announcements aimed at supporting businesses and individuals.

COVID-19: Spotlight 54: Tax avoidance promoters targeting returning NHS workers
HMRC have issued Spotlight 54 ‘Tax avoidance promoters targeting returning NHS workers’ warning about new tax avoidance schemes which target workers returning to the NHS to help respond to the COVID-19 outbreak.

COVID-19: Employee Job Retention Scheme
How does this work? What do you payroll? Do we know more about overtime? Letter to employee template.

COVID-19: Insolvency & directors
As a result of the coronavirus crisis, the government has announced that it will temporarily suspend the wrongful trading on insolvency rules, backdated to 1 March 2020.

COVID-19: Company directors & shareholders
Many small companies are run by just one or two directors and have no other employees. What government financial support is available to director/shareholders during the coronavirus crisis?

COVID-19: VAT
VAT payment deferral measures for VAT registered business

COVID-19: IR35 & Off-payroll working
Summarising the different issues for contractors

Editor's pick (subscribers)

Tax Returns: To-do list before/after 5 April 2020
What tax returns and claims are due before the end of the tax year?  What are my tax filing requirements?

Tax Planning for the 2019/20 year-end
This is our year-end and new tax year checklist and toolkit for individual Private Clients. It can be used in conjunction with our checklists for directors, employers and self-employed individuals.

Year-end top ten tips for OMB's 2019/20
Last-minute advice for clients? What should you focus on as the 2019/20 tax year-end approaches?  What should you do before 5th April and what could you leave until later?  

Client Briefing: Making gifts & IHT
Part 1 of a new suite of guides for clients.

Virtual Tax Partner Toolkits (freeview)

Virtual Tax Partner © Tax Toolkit© Tax Toolkits
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Tax Queries?

Virtual Tax Partner© Support
Have a tax query? Need a second option? Open a ticket and ask a question. A team of tax experts with a very wide range of expertise: covering direct and indirect tax, as well as accounting, R&D claims, reorganisations and much more. 

CPD for lunch 

Byte-sized chunks of CPD for subscribers

More at CPD Index

Missed last time's Web-update?

Nichola's SME Tax W-update 26 March 2020

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