- If your business is based outside and sells goods stored in the UK to UK consumers through an on-line marketplace, the business will be required to register for VAT when it commences to trade in the UK (as overseas businesses to not have the benefit of waiting until their sales exceed the VAT registration threshold).
- It has always been a grey area whether some procedures carried out for medical purposes qualify for VAT exemption and there is a case in which a tax tribunal ruled that botox and nail fungal treatments did not qualify.
- The IR35 saga continues. In the latest reported case (TC07377) , once again involving BBC presenters, the First-tier Tribunal has found in favour of HMRC, but only as a result of the lead judge exercising her casting vote.
- HMRC’s guidance for non-UK residents disposing of UK property has been updated to reflect the changes which took effect on 6 April 2019. The guidance note can be found here.
- HMRC have recently been looking very closely at claims that properties with extensive grounds and maybe disused farm outbuildings are ‘mixed use’ and taxable at the lower non-residential rates of SDLT.
- According to the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) incentives such as entrepreneur’s relief are encouraging business owners to shift around their income to minimise tax payments.
- The annual Budget Statement is usually a big event in the tax world, but 2019 will be the year without a Budget as the government is frozen in a state of Brexit paralysis.