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SPOTLIGHT ON: Divorce and tax: What you need to consider
Divorce or the end of a civil partnership often involves difficult personal and financial decisions. Tax may not be the first point on the list, but it can change the real value of a settlement. A proposed division of assets may look fair on paper. The after tax position may be different if one person…
Read MoreSPOTLIGHT ON: Salary sacrifice in 2026/27
Salary sacrifice can be a useful way to reduce tax and National Insurance, increase pension savings and access certain employee benefits at a lower net cost. Used well, it can reduce the tax and National Insurance paid on some benefits, preserve allowances that would otherwise be lost, and help build pension savings more efficiently. Used…
Read MoreSPOTLIGHT ON: E-invoicing: What UK businesses should do now
E-invoicing is moving from a software choice to a compliance and finance planning issue. The government has confirmed that e-invoicing will become mandatory for all VAT invoices from April 2029. HMRC and the Department for Business and Trade are due to publish an implementation roadmap at Budget 2026, setting out the milestones businesses should expect…
Read MoreSPOTLIGHT ON: Associated company rules: Protecting your corporation tax thresholds
Running more than one limited company is common for many owner-managers. You might have a trading company alongside a property company, a separate company for a different service line, a holding company above the group, or an old company kept for a brand name. Each company may have made sense when it was set up.…
Read MoreSPOTLIGHT ON: Director’s loans: How to stay clear of unwanted tax charges
Many business owners withdraw funds from their companies beyond salary and dividends at some point. It could cover a short-term personal cost, help with a property deposit, or bridge the gap between dividend declarations. That flexibility can be useful, but director’s loan accounts come with tax rules that are easy to underestimate. If the balance…
Read MoreSPOTLIGHT ON: Working abroad: Getting your UK tax residence right
Spending time abroad for work has become much more common. You might be moving for a posting, taking a permanent role overseas, working remotely from another country, or returning to the UK after several years away. What often surprises people is how far UK tax can follow them. Leaving the country does not automatically make…
Read MoreSPOTLIGHT ON: How SMEs can get ready for e-invoicing
E-invoicing has moved from a back-office improvement to a planning issue for UK businesses. The government has said that all VAT invoices will need to be issued as e-invoices from April 2029. In practice, that mainly affects business-to-business and business-to-government VAT invoices, rather than ordinary business-to-consumer sales. The detailed UK roadmap and standards are still…
Read MoreSPOTLIGHT ON: Giving to charity: Tax reliefs you can use
Giving to charity is often driven by values rather than tax planning, but the tax treatment still matters. Used properly, the available reliefs can make a donation go further, lower your tax bill, or both. HMRC’s latest charity tax relief statistics show that tax reliefs for charities and donors were worth about £6.7 billion in…
Read MoreSPOTLIGHT ON: Pension allowances
Pensions remain one of the most tax-efficient ways to save for the long term. They can help reduce taxable income, support business owners’ extraction planning, and build retirement wealth in a structured way. Problems usually arise when contributions are made without first checking the rules. That is when an otherwise sensible pension contribution can trigger…
Read MoreSPOTLIGHT ON: MTD for income tax: Your April 2026 checklist
Making Tax Digital for income tax (MTD IT) starts from 6 April 2026 for sole traders and landlords with qualifying income over £50,000. For many businesses and property owners, the change is less about extra tax and more about changing how records are kept and how income is reported to HMRC through the year. HMRC…
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