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Hopefully by now you’ve been trying out the exciting new functions and features of the new Mileage Tracker.

We wanted to help you use this as effectively as possible for your day-to-day trips, so here are a few pointers to help you get going:

Check your journeys in-App

Classified a business trip as personal? With the all-new editing function now available, it’s more important that you check over logged journeys to make sure all the details were correct. You may have been in a rush for a meeting and logged a manual trip, and if you’ve mis-typed something, don’t worry – one of the major improvements is the ability to edit your saved trips.

Simply click ‘View trips’ on the Mileage main menu screen and click the pencil editing button to update your journey. Click on a field to start typing and update details, or if you need to swap business to personal, you can either toggle that on the trip overview, or edit it within the Update Trip section. 

Fill out your settings

It may not be the most enjoyable task but filling out your details in the My Settings icon means your details will be pre-populated in the email when it comes to sending us your mileage reports. Simply add your name, employee ID, email address and preference for miles or kilometres, and we’ll receive all the necessary info we need for your records.

Make sure your device is charged

It’s important to remember that using the GPS in the background will consume battery, so make sure your device has enough charge for the trip ahead. The App also must remain open in the background for the journey to track, so if you do leave the App, don’t close it completely.

Head straight to our Mileage Tracker now and start tracking your journeys with improved accuracy, then export them to us when you are ready.

The draft VAT MOSS regulations we told you about in our newsletter on 27 September 2018 have now been passed. This means a de-minimise turnover threshold of £8,818 will apply to the VAT MOSS scheme from 1 January 2019.

UK traders who supply digital services (e.g ebooks) to non-business customers in other EU countries will be able to take advantage of this de-minimise threshold, if all of the following apply:

• The trader is only based in the UK and doesn’t have a base in another EU country.
• The total value of all digital services supplied to consumers in other EU countries is expected to be less than £8,818 for 2019.
• The total value of the electronic services supplied to non-business consumers in other EU countries less than £8,818 in 2018.

Where the de-minimise threshold applies, the place of supply of all the digital services supplied by the trader will be deemed to be in the trader’s home country, so for a UK based trader, in the UK. It follows that the UK trader will only have to apply VAT to those sales if he is register for UK VAT.

A business which makes digital sales to EU customers of less than £8,818 will be able to de-register from VAT MOSS. If the total VATable sales are less than £85,000, the business will also be able cancel their UK VAT registration, which was a requirement of having to register for VAT MOSS.

The amended guidance on VAT MOSS says the trader must tell HMRC at least 15 days before the end of the quarter which ends before the date want to leave the VAT MOSS scheme. So to leave VAT MOSS on 1 January 2019 the trader should tell HMRC by 15 December 2018.

It is not clear how a trader will submit the last VAT MOSS return, if he has already left the VAT MOSS scheme and has also deregistered for UK VAT. A prudent course of action would be to submit the final VAT MOSS return (due by 20 Jan 2019 for the quarter to 31 Dec 2018), on or before 31 December 2018, before the VAT MOSS registration ceases.

Written by the Tax Advice Network

Brilliant news – our brand-new Mileage Tracker is now live and ready for you to start tracking journeys!

 

Simply head to the App store on your device now and download the recent update. We’ve made improvements just for you, so you can auto track journeys in the background, edit trip details, sync trips in the cloud and more!

 

Since 6 April 2015 employment intermediaries have been required to make quarterly reports to HMRC of payments made to non-payroll workers placed with third parties (see our newsletters: 9 July and 6 August 2015). If those reports are not submitted on time HMRC can impose stiff penalties (see our newsletter on 20 October 2016).

Some of those penalties are now being challenged at the first-tier tribunal, and in the four cases we have seen the taxpayer win the appeal, so the penalties were cancelled.

The reasons given by the judges in accepting the appeals are interesting as they could apply far more widely.

Penalty not correctly issued

In three cases: Expion Silverstone ltd, A* Education, and Tarrant Howl Ltd, the judge decided that there was no evidence that an officer of HMRC made the penalty determinations. The court found that in each case the penalty was issued automatically by a computer, and as the computer is not a real officer of HMRC, the penalties weren’t valid.

It is worth using this argument in cases involving penalties which have been issued automatically for late or non-submission of returns in other situations, as the same underlying law in TMA 1970 will apply.

Not an employment intermediary

In Leverton Search Ltd the judge found that the taxpayer was not a “specified employment intermediary”, as at no point in the periods covered by the penalties did the company supply more than one individual to work for a third party. This is the exemption which takes personal service companies out of the requirement to submit reports as an employment intermediary.

It is always worth checking the detailed conditions of the legislation, as HMRC don’t always do so.

 

Written by the Tax Advice Network

The law of unintended consequences came into play when the government changed the off-payroll working (IR35) rules for public sector contracts. Those contracting to public bodies such as NHS trusts suffered reductions in their take-home pay, and were tempted into using disguised remuneration schemes to make up the losses.

These schemes are variations of contractor loans which were closed down by anti-avoidance legislation years ago, but doctors and other health service staff are still being sold these complex and illegal schemes. We are warning clients who work in the public sector that schemes with tag lines such as “fully compliant 90% take home pay solution”, are illegal and if the promoter claims the scheme is approved by HMRC, it most certainly isn’t.

What is worse for the promoters and users of those schemes, is the general advisory panel of the general anti-abuse rule (GAAR) has recently ruled that a contractor loan scheme and a scheme involving employee loans, are both abusive arrangements. This means that HMRC can now issue counteraction notices to users of those schemes.

These notices may lead to the taxpayers being liable for a GAAR penalty, and will trigger the issue of an accelerated payment notice (APN) to demand payment of the avoided tax. The penalty and tax payment can both be enforced without the scheme having to be examined at a tax tribunal.

If you have already used a loan scheme, and is subject to the 2019 loan charge, you should read the updated guidance from HMRC. If you should need any further information please contact our office.

Written by the Tax Advice Network

Last year the FTT considered a claim by the personal representatives of the estate of Maureen Vigne, for business property relief (BPR) on the value of the livery business she owned at her death (see our newsletter 4 October 2017). The Vigne estate won the case at the FTT, but HMRC appealed to the Upper Tribunal.

HMRC generally challenges claims for BPR by asserting that the business consists wholly or mainly of “dealing in securities, stocks or shares, land or buildings or making or holding investments”, and thus is excluded from the relief by IHTA 1984 s 105(3).

In the Vigne case HMRC accepted that the livery was a business, but it argued that it was a land-based business which was wholly or mainly one of making or holding investments. The court heard about all the services the livery provides for the horses, including providing horse blankets in winter, making sure the greedy horses don’t over-eat, and daily health checks for each animal.

The Vigne estate argued that the business had more in common with a children’s nursery than holiday lettings, for which BPR claims have been rejected (see Pawson case).

Although the UT agreed with the FTT that BPR was due, the judge stated that there was no bright line separating businesses which qualify for BPR and those that don’t. Thus, we still have no clear guidelines on when BPR can apply to a land-based business. The best approach will be to document all the services provided alongside the use of the land.

Written by the Tax Advice Network