Admin

Key dates for your diary

The online filing deadline for self assessment returns has been extended by a fortnight for some taxpayers, it is understood.

Tolley Tax is reporting on an automated HMRC email response to a requests for a user ID that included a reminder to “file your tax return online before midnight 15 February to avoid receiving a penalty”.

C Davison (TC3121)

The taxman’s powers to withhold repayments

Michael Young Plumbing & Heating Engineers Ltd (TC3090)

Crownfold Ltd (TC3079)

E N Jones (TC3085)

HMRC are planning to ramp up their online solutions through a recruitment drive in the north-east.

The department plans to hire more than 50 specialists to build digital services that will make tax affairs simpler, clearer and faster for people and businesses to manage.

The Revenue intends for staff and technology suppliers to work together in a new centre in the Newcastle area – an upcoming region for digital talent – to identify the needs of taxpayers, test new services with real users, and improve existing offerings.

Interim report plans to patch up “fiscal footwear”

Erect Architecture Ltd (TC3076)

The HMRC information service on tax avoidance arrangements, Spotlights, has added an update on contractor loan schemes in light of the First-tier Tribunal decision in P Boyle (TC3103).

The tribunal dismissed all the arguments put forward by an IT contractor that his contractor loan scheme worked and the money he received was not subject to tax. The judge decided that the money paid over to the taxpayer as loans was “in substance and reality income from his employment” and therefore taxable.

Tasks to pass around the office this week