On Tuesday 29th November, Chancellor George Osborne presented his Autumn Statement to the House of Commons.

Draft legislation will be published on 6 December 2011 and we will provide an update for you if significant changes are announced.

In the meantime we have provided a summary of the Statement and a reminder of other key tax developments which are to take place from April 2012 in our attached report.

Class 2 National Insurance paid by the self employed is changing from April 2011.

Quarterly bills will no longer be issued and payments will be brought into line with income tax payments:

•  April 2011 to October 2011 NI contributions will be due by 31 January 2012
•  October 2011 to April 2012 NI contributions will be due by 31 July 2012

However, a monthly payment will still be an option but they will now be collected 4 months in arrears instead of 1 month.   This will result in a break in collection of Class 2 NIC until August 2011, when the usual monthly collections will re-commerce.

Jonathan Crowther commented on his initial reaction to the announcements, “there are certainly some interesting measures to try to stimulate business growth.  However, the main headlines of a 2% reduction in mainstream corporation tax for large companies and the reintroduction of Enterprise Zones whilst being good for the Country unfortunately will not benefit most of our smaller clients locally. 

So far as personal taxation is concerned, it is good to see the target of a £10,000 personal allowance has been retained although it will be some years before this is achieved.  As accountants we also welcome the discussion to unify Income Tax with National Insurance that will remove a lot of administrative burden from small businesses.” 

Our budget summary which follows, focuses on the issues likely to affect individuals and business. To help you decipher what was said we have included our own comments in red.

read more »

This month, our regular newsletter, eNews, contains three features highlighting the way PAYE is being moved increasingly online and these are copied below.  

The three articles we have featured cover:

1. online payments of PAYE.
2. finding information previously supplied on the PAYE CD ROM.
3. filing the year end returns P35 and P14′s.

read more »

Nikki Walding and Jonathan Crowther

We wish all our clients and contacts a very Happy New Year.   

As this is the season for new year resolutions that usually involve health matters, Jonathan Crowther and Nikki Walding list 8 of their best personal financial planning tips for anyone looking for some inspiration on how to improve their financial health in 2011.

read more »