HMRC is still required to obtain certain returns from you even if there is no income or tax to declare. Failure to submit will likely trigger late filing penalties and unfortunately, pleading ignorance of your obligations to file “nil” returns is not a reasonable excuse.

Which begs the question, what is a reasonable excuse?

HMRC had published what may, and what will not, be considered excusable. They say:

A reasonable excuse is something that stopped you meeting a tax obligation that you took reasonable care to meet, for example:

• your partner or another close relative died shortly before the tax return or payment deadline,
• you had an unexpected stay in hospital that prevented you from dealing with your tax affairs,
• you had a serious or life-threatening illness,
• your computer or software failed just before or while you were preparing your online return,
• service issues with HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) online services,
• a fire, flood or theft prevented you from completing your tax return,
• postal delays that you couldn’t have predicted,
• delays related to a disability you have.

You must send your return or payment as soon as possible after your reasonable excuse is resolved.

What won’t count as a reasonable excuse are situations where:

• you relied on someone else to send your return and they didn’t,
• your cheque bounced, or payment failed because you didn’t have enough money,
• you found the HMRC online system too difficult to use,
• you didn’t get a reminder from HMRC,
• you made a mistake on your tax return.

Often, failure to file is not a deliberate act. Unfortunately, appealing against what you consider to be an unreasonable stance by HMRC is not that simple, and ignoring the issue is not the way to go.

If you find yourself in dispute with HMRC on a late filing challenge, we can help. Please call us so we can discuss your options.

Suppliers who sell goods and services to larger concerns often find that the terms of their supply, limits or bans the process of factoring the debts to release funds into cash flow.

Cynically, this could be seen as a method these larger customers have used to control options available to their smaller suppliers.

Unfortunately, suppliers who sell predominately to major buyers find themselves in a cleft stick: they generally have to wait for longer periods to be paid and as a result are constantly short of cash.

Invoice factoring or discounting allows say 80% of a sales invoice value to be received when the invoice is issued and accepted by the customer; a specialist finance company or bank steps in to provide the discounting service.

The good news is that there is to be a change in the law to ban these restrictive practices and allow smaller companies to gain access to the funds locked up in their trade debtors.

Under the new proposed laws, any such contractual restrictions entered into after 31 December 2018, with certain exceptions, would have no effect and could be disregarded by small businesses and finance providers, which will help stop larger businesses from abusing their market position.

HMRC has about-faced regarding the ban on using spreadsheets to work out your VAT return data from 1 April 2019, when the new requirement to file VAT returns using Making Tax Digital (MTD) format is introduced.

Bowing to pressure from industry, the accountancy profession and Parliamentary committees, HMRC has now agreed that you can use spreadsheets for VAT purposes; unfortunately, there is a large “but”.

The rationale behind the development of MTD is that HMRC wants your returns of data through its MTD portal to be linked directly to the source material, the accounting entries that make up the returns. They do not want you to cut and paste data from your accounting records (including spreadsheets) into HMRC’s digital accounts.

Accordingly, they have agreed to the use of spreadsheets as long as the data is transferred using bridging software that is compatible with its MTD systems.

Software developers are now faced with creating this bridging solution and we will be reviewing solutions to settle on the best-fit option for clients.

Options for reducing the impact of taxation on our earnings are somewhat limited. That said, there are still opportunities that will keep you the right side of the law and will increase the take home pay of employees.

One such opportunity available to employers is to pay so-called trivial benefits. The benefits may be of small value, but never-the-less, even small tax-free payments will be gratefully received.

To qualify as tax-free, the benefits paid to employees need to fit the following criteria:

• they cost £50 or less to provide,
• the payments are not made in cash or by the use of cash vouchers,
• the benefits are not made as a reward for work or performance,
• the provision of the benefits is not required in the terms of contracts of employment.

You don’t need to pay tax or National Insurance or advise HMRC that qualifying payments have been made, however, you will have to pay tax and possibly National Insurance on any benefits that don’t meet all these criteria.

Directors of smaller companies can also avail themselves of this benefit, but in their case, these payments would be limited to a maximum £300 in a tax year. This restriction also applies to members of the director’s family and household.

The benefits can also apply where the trivial benefit is provided on behalf of the employer by a third party. For example, where the benefit is provided through a management services company within a group of companies or by a third party business where management services have been outsourced, provided the cost of the benefit is ultimately borne by the employer.

Further clarification provided by HMRC regarding the payment of trivial benefits includes:

• One of the conditions that has to be satisfied is that the cost of providing the benefit does not exceed £50. If the cost of providing the benefit exceeds £50, the full amount is taxable, not just the excess over £50.
• In determining the cost of the benefit for the purposes of the exemption, as for benefits in kind more generally, use the VAT inclusive.
• The cost of providing the benefit to each employee and not the overall cost to the employer determines whether the benefit can be treated as a trivial benefit. So, a benefit costing up to £50 per employee whether provided to one or more employees can be treated as trivial.
• Usually it will be obvious what the cost of providing the benefit is. However, on occasions an employer will provide a benefit to a group of employees and it is impracticable to establish what the precise cost is per person. In such cases, when determining whether the monetary limit has been exceeded you should take the average cost per person of providing the benefit.
• In determining whether the average cost method should be applied, you should apply common sense, bearing in mind the circumstances, in deciding whether it is appropriate.

As we approach the festive season the following example may shed some light on how this scheme would work in practice.

An employer provides each of its 100 employees with a turkey at Christmas and the total bill comes to £4,500. There are a variety of sizes. Because the employer has made a bulk order, the turkeys have not been priced up individually but would cost in the region of £40 to £60 each. Employees are able to choose which bird they have. Rather than undertake a detailed analysis of the individual benefits, HMRC advise that you should accept that the cost per head is £45, reflecting an average amount of £4,500/100. The benefit can be covered by the exemption since the cost for each employee does not exceed the trivial benefit financial limit.