Our publishing supplier will be producing a newsletter overnight, but in the mean time I’ve looked at “small print” as it may effect a typical Whitefield client. I’m ignoring the big ticket headlines which will be well reported in the media – although I would have preferred cheaper champagne and wine to cheaper beer!
Over recent years, more and more, the “devil is in the detail” with budgets and the news releases / budget notices are increasingly where the relevant content is rather than the main speech.
Thankfully there appears to be nothing horrid in todays budget papers. A few things of interest:
~ IR35 – nothing of note. Confirmation that “office holders” are intended to be in IR35, but that was never a surprise – this covers “office holders” as in controllers of large entities, the most public example in recent years being the “self employed” director of the Student Loan Company. Contrary to rumours HMRC have confirmed there is no intent to classify ordinary company directors as “office holders” merely by running a company.
~ Threshold for P11D benefit on loans to shareholders/directors goes up to£10,000 from £5,000 in 2014/15. Doesn’t alter the 25% s455 charge which remains unchanged.
~ Annual Investment Allowance up to £250k from1 January (pre announced).
~ Main Corporation Tax rate to 20% from 2015/16, aligning it with the Small Company Rate.
~ £2,000 Employers NI NI rebate per business from 2014/15 – Looks like it applies to all businesses, but Employers NI only, not Employees – in other words dividends are still cheaper.
~ Annual Pension Allowance down to £40k. This applies to personal contributions, not corporate ones where the test is more subjective.
~ New employer childcare scheme from autumn 2015, light on detail at the moment, but 20% relief on up to £6k promised.
~ IHT anti avoidance legislation, to counter perpetual non repayable loan schemes – may impact some of the exotic EBT tax planning structures being sold, although HMRC are closing these downs in other ways in any event.
~ Restrictions on “bed and breakfasting” of loans to directors / shareholders from a company, also on loans to shareholders via LLPs and similar.
~ Anti avoidance on disguised employment via LLPs – the automatic presumption of self employment for LLP partners is going. This aligns with the rules for ordinary partnerships and “salaried partners” and won’t affect genuine commercial situations
^JH