Income Tax

S McGregor (TC2748)

The Treasury’s controversial new employment status is set to go in to operation at the start of next month.

The employee-shareholder arrangement will see staff members give up a number of workers’ rights from 1 September in exchange for at least £2,000 of tax-friendly shares in their employer’s company.

Finance Act 2013 provides reliefs for the shares, meaning income tax and National Insurance will usually not be chargeable on the first £2,000 of share value received, and there will usually be a capital gains tax exemption for up to £50,000 of shares.

Appeal Commissioners v Bank of Nova Scotia, Privy Council

The real-time information system that has been introduced to make operation of the PAYE system more straightforward seems to be causing many headaches for employers and their advisers

At the end of term, it is becoming more likely that parents will give presents to the teachers of their children. Some of the presents are quite valauble, and advice is required on whether an income tax or National Insurance contributions liability will arise

Mansworth v Jelley enquiries: is there an argument for legitimate expectation?

HMRC have set up a dedicated team to identify the cause of difficulties for PAYE schemes in reconciling the difference between the tax the department says is due and that which the employer believes is due.

The team is working with schemes through their examples to examine what is causing the discrepancies, with the aim of finding resolutions.

The Revenue hopes the new set-up will form understanding of the issue in greater depth, and lead to steps necessary to prevent the problems arising in future.

Employers are risking problems for their workers by entering 0.00 in the field for annual amount of occupation on the full payment submission (FPS) in cases where no occupational pension is paid, the Revenue has warned.

Healy v CRC, Upper Tribunal (Tax and Chancery Chamber)

HMRC have published a consultation on tax-free childcare for working families and additional assistance with childcare for parents through universal credit. Under the scheme to be administered by the Revenue, the government will provide 20% of working families’ childcare costs, subject to an annual limit of £1,200 for each child.

Parents will register with a voucher provider and open an online account. The government will then top up payments into this account at a rate of 20p for every 80p that families pay in, subject to the above limit.

Experiences of a practitioner and small business suffering under the weight of real-time information

Claygold Property Ltd (TC2717)