Back to the office

Now that the ‘work from home if you can’ guidance has been lifted, employees are returning to the office. If, following their return, you allow employees to keep their homeworking equipment for personal use, there may be tax consequences to consider.

Employer-provided equipment

If you provided homeworking equipment to your employees to enable them to work from home, no tax charge arose on the provision of the equipment, as long as you retained ownership of it. However, there may be tax to pay if you allow the employee to keep the equipment for their personal use when they no longer need it to work from home. The nature of the tax charge depends on whether ownership of the equipment is transferred to the employee.   

Ownership transferred

A tax charge will arise if you transfer ownership of the equipment to the employee, unless the employee pays at least the market value for the equipment. The amount charged to tax is the market value at the date of the transfer, less any amount paid by the employee.

No transfer of ownership

If, instead, you retain ownership of the equipment but allow the employee to use it for their personal use, the tax charge is based on the ‘annual value’ of the equipment. This is 20% of the market value of the equipment at the date on which it is first made available for the employee’s personal use.

You may have chosen to adopt a flexible working policy under which employees continue to work from home some of the time. Where this is the case, as long as the homeworking equipment remains available predominantly to allow the employee to work from home, no tax charge will arise on insignificant private use.

Employer-reimbursed equipment

At the start of the pandemic, many employees were required to work from home at very short notice. In many cases, it was easier for the employee to buy the equipment that they needed to work from home, and claim the cost back from the employer.

If you took this route and reimbursed employees for the cost of homeworking equipment, as long as the ownership of the equipment was not transferred to you, there is no tax to pay if the employee retains the equipment for personal use when they return to the workplace.

Contact us

If you are unsure whether a tax charge arises in respect of retained homeworking equipment when your employees return to the office, please get in touch to discuss this with us.

NMW reminder for summer staff

If you take on temporary staff over the summer, you will need to pay them at least the National Living or Minimum Wage appropriate to their age.

Workers aged 23 and over

Workers aged 23 and over are entitled to be paid at least the National Living Wage (NLW). This is set at £8.91 per hour.

Workers under the age of 23

Workers under the age of 23 are not entitled to the NLW; instead, you must pay them at least the National Minimum Wage (NMW) for their age. This is set at £8.36 per hour for workers aged 21 and 22, at £6.56 per hour for workers aged 18 to 20, and at £4.62 per hour for workers aged under 18 but over school leaving age.

Get in touch

Talk to us if you are unsure whether you are complying with the National Minimum Wage rules.

Collection of tax debts after COVID-19

During the COVID-19 pandemic, HMRC paused much of their debt collection work, both to divert resources to administering the various COVID-19 support schemes and to help taxpayers whose finances were adversely affected by the pandemic. However, as the country emerges from the Coronavirus crisis, HMRC have restarted their tax debt collection work and will be contacting taxpayers who have fallen behind with their payments.

Talk to HMRC

If you have unpaid tax debts and HMRC contact you to discuss those debts, the best course of action is to speak to them to agree a repayment plan. Ignoring the problem will not make it go away, and HMRC may start enforcement proceedings against taxpayers who ignore their attempts to contact them.

Pay if you can

If you have outstanding tax debts and are able to pay them, HMRC’s expectation is that you will. In assessing your ability to pay, HMRC will expect you to make use of the various COVID-19 finance schemes, such as the Recovery Loan Scheme, to raise the necessary funds. If you need time to arrange the finance, HMRC may offer a short-term deferral of your tax debt. If this is agreed, HMRC will not take any action until that period had elapsed, and you will not need to make any payments during the deferral period.

Time-to-pay arrangements

If you are unable to clear your outstanding tax debts in full, you may be able to agree a time-to-pay arrangement with HMRC.

There is no standard agreement; time-to-pay arrangements are based on an individual’s circumstances. HMRC will establish your ability to pay by looking at your income and expenditure. They will also want to know why you are struggling to pay, and what action you have taken to try and pay some or all of the bill.

Enforcement action

If you do not pay your outstanding tax debts or come to an agreement with HMRC to pay what you owe in instalments, from September 2021, HMRC may use their enforcement powers to collect tax that is owed to them. Avenues available to them include taking control of goods, summary warrants and court action, including insolvency proceedings.

While HMRC will, where possible, aim to support viable businesses, if a business has little chance of recovery, HMRC will take action to recover any tax that they are owed.

Talk to us

If you have tax debts that you are struggling to pay, speak to us. We can help you agree a repayment plan with HMRC.

EU e-commerce package for VAT

The EU e-commerce package came into effect on 1 July 2021. It introduced reforms in respect of the movement of goods from Northern Ireland to the EU and imports of low value goods into the EU or Northern Ireland.

Who is affected?

The changes will affect you if you:

• sell or supply goods from Northern Ireland to non-VAT registered customers in the EU;
• make supplies of goods from the EU to non-VAT registered customers in Northern Ireland;
• send low value goods to Northern Ireland or the EU from Great Britain or elsewhere outside the EU and Northern Ireland; or
• are a non-EU business with goods located in Northern Ireland at the point of sale.  

New distance selling threshold

A new pan-European distance selling threshold of €10,000 (£8,818) applies from 1 July 2021.

The new distance selling threshold will apply to you if you are a business selling goods to consumers based in Northern Ireland. You will fall within the scope of the rules if the annual value of your sales of goods across the EU exceeds this level. There is no need to take account of sales of services as these do not count towards the threshold.

One Stop Shop

A new One Stop Shop (OSS) has been introduced to prevent businesses falling within the scope of the rules from having to register in each EU member state in which they have customers. If you are a Northern Irish business selling goods in excess of the new €10,000 threshold to EU consumers, you can register for the OSS, rather than registering for VAT in each member state in which you have customers. Registering with the OSS is optional, but it will enable you to declare and pay VAT for EU goods quarterly via one online portal. You can register either in the UK or in a member state with which you do business. If you register in the UK, you will need to be registered for UK VAT, even if your turnover is below the VAT registration threshold.

Low value consignment relief

Low Value Consignment Relief (which provided an exemption from import VAT for consignments of goods valued at less than €22 which were sold online to customers in the EU) was abolished with effect from 1 July 2021. This means that if you sell goods online to EU customers, you will now need to pay import VAT in the country in which the customer is based.

Import One Stop Shop (IOSS)

The Import One Stop Shop (IOSS) was introduced from 1 July 2021. The IOSS, which can only be used for consignments valued at €150 (£135) or less, allows registered businesses to collect the import VAT on business-to-customer (B2C) orders at the point of sale. If you do not register to use the IOSS, VAT will be collected on importation into the EU, as for high value consignments.

If your business is established outside the EU, to use the IOSS, you will need to appoint an intermediary to act on your behalf. This will be the case if your business is established in the UK.

Online marketplaces

The package also introduces new rules for supplies made to online marketplaces importing goods into the EU and Northern Ireland. These are similar to the rules that have applied for imports into Northern Ireland from outside the UK and the EU since 1 January 2021.  

We can help

We can help you understand what the reforms mean for you, and what you need to do. We can also explain how the rules apply to you if you use an online marketplace to import goods.

Reporting SEISS payments on your tax return

If you have received one or more grants under the Self-Employment Income Support Scheme (SEISS), it is important that you report the payments correctly on your tax return.

2020/21 self-assessment tax return

SEISS grants that were received in the 2020/21 tax year (i.e., between 6 April 2020 and 5 April 2021) should be reported on your 2020/21 self-assessment tax return, regardless of the date to which you prepare your accounts. The return must be filed online by midnight on 31 January 2022 (or by 31 October 2021 if you file a paper return). The first three grants under the scheme were paid in the 2020/21 tax year.

If you have already filed your 2020/21 tax return, HMRC may adjust your return if the information that they hold on the SEISS payments that have been made to you does not match what is shown on your return.

How to report SEISS payments

Grant payments received under the SEISS should not be included in turnover. Instead, they should be reported separately on the 2020/21 tax return in the box for Self-Employment Income Support Scheme grants. The location of the box depends on which self-assessment tax return is completed. It can be found:

• on page 2 of the ‘other tax adjustments’ section on the self-employment pages (SA103F) of the full return;
• in the ‘other tax adjustments’ section of the self-employment (short) page (SA103S);
• on page 2 of the ‘trading or professional profits’ section of the partnership return; and
• in section 3.10A of the SA200 short tax return.

HMRC corrections

HMRC will check the SEISS grants payments reported in the return against their records of the grants that have been paid to you.

If you have already submitted your 2020/21 tax return, and the amount of the SEISS payments that you reported on your return did not tally with HMRC’s records, HMRC will adjust your return to match their records and they will send you a revised tax calculation.

It is advisable that you check the figures on HMRC’s revised calculation against your records of the grants received. You can check the amounts that you have received either by logging into the SEISS claims service or against your bank statements for the account into which the payments were made.

If you do not agree with HMRC’s revised figures, you should contact their Coronavirus (COVID-19) helpline for businesses and self-employed people.

Failure to report SEISS payments

If you received one or more grants under the SEISS in 2020/21 and do not include them on your self-assessment tax return for that year, HMRC will adjust your return to reflect the payments and send you a revised tax calculation. As a result, you may find that you owe more tax than you expected, have an unexpected tax bill, or that the tax repayment you were expecting is reduced.

SEISS payments reported in the wrong box

If you included SEISS payments in your 2020/21 tax return, but did not enter the amount that you received in the designated box, for example, because you included it in turnover or entered it in one of the ‘other income’ boxes, you will need to amend your self-assessment tax return so that the grants are entered in the correct box and removed from the wrong box. If you do not do this, the grant income will be assessed twice, as HMRC will adjust the return to enter details of grants received in the correct box (but will not remove the income from elsewhere in the return). 

Failure to complete a self-employment or partnership page

To qualify for the SEISS grants for 2020/21, you had to be trading in that tax year. If you have not completed a self-assessment or partnership page, HMRC will assume that you were not trading, and therefore ineligible for the grants. Consequently, they will seek to recover any grants that were paid to you.  

If you were trading, but omitted to complete the relevant pages, you should amend your tax return to reflect this.  

Appeal if you disagree with HMRC’s adjustments

If you do not agree with the changes that HMRC have made to your tax return in respect of your SEISS grant payments, you can appeal. However, you must do this within 30 days of the date on the SA302 letter advising you of the changes that they have made to your return.

HMRC have not yet taken account of changes that were made to 2020/21 tax returns before 19 June 2021. If you corrected your return before that date, you do not need to contact HMRC as they will process the amendments separately.

Speak to us

Contact us if HMRC have adjusted the SEISS payments reported in your 2020/21 tax return. We can help you check whether the figures are correct, and take action if they are not.

New lower temporary SDLT threshold

The residential stamp duty land tax (SDLT) threshold applying in England and Northern Ireland was temporarily increased to £500,000 from 8 July 2020 to 30 June 2021 (extended from the original end date of 31 March 2021). From 1 July 2021 to 30 September 2021, a new temporary residential threshold of £250,000 applies. The threshold reverts to its usual level of £125,000 from 1 October 2021. Details of the rates can be found on the Gov.uk website.

Nature of the temporary threshold

To help boost house sales during the COVID-19 pandemic, the SDLT residential threshold was temporarily increased. Similar measures were introduced in Scotland in relation to land transaction tax (LTT) and in Wales in relation to land and buildings transaction tax (LBTT).

SDLT: 8 July 2020 to 30 June 2021

A higher temporary residential SDLT threshold of £500,000 applied in England and Northern Ireland where completion took place between 8 July 2020 and 30 June 2021. The usual rates applied to any consideration in excess of £500,000.

SDLT: 1 July 2021 to 30 September 2021

From 1 July 2021, the SDLT residential threshold drops to a new temporary level of £250,000. If you are in the process of buying a house and missed the 30 June 2021 completion deadline, you will be able to save SDLT of up to £2,500 if you complete by 30 September 2021.

The residential rates applying during this period are as set out in the table below.

First-time buyers

From 1 July 2021, the threshold for first-time buyers reverts to £300,000 where the consideration is £500,000. First-time buyers pay no SDLT on the first £300,000 and pay SDLT at the rate of 5% on any consideration in excess of £300,000 up to £500,000. If the consideration is more than £500,000, the above rates and residential threshold apply.

SDLT: From 1 October 2021

The residential SDLT threshold reverts to its usual level of £125,000 from 1 October 2021. Purchasers will pay SDLT at a rate of 2% on the portion from £125,000 to £250,000. Above £250,000, the rates are as in the table above.

Second and subsequent properties

Investors and second-home owners also benefit from the temporary residential thresholds as the 3% supplement is added to the residential rates as reduced.

Scotland

The LTT threshold in Scotland was increased to £250,000 from 15 July 2020 until 31 March 2021. However, this period was not extended, and the threshold reverted to £145,000 from 1 April 2021. As in England and Northern Ireland, those buying second and subsequent properties benefited from the higher threshold; the 4% supplement was applied to the reduced residential rates.

Wales

The LBTT threshold in Wales was increased to £250,000 from 27 July 2020 to 30 June 2021, reverting to £180,000 from 1 July 2021. Unlike the rest of the UK, purchasers of second and subsequent properties in Wales did not benefit from the higher threshold.

Speak to us

If you are thinking of moving home or buying a holiday or investment property, speak to us to find out whether you can save SDLT.