Lewis Smith & Co. was delighted to be a sponsor for a very special event on Saturday 7th July: the 10th Anniversary Alfie Johnson Summer Ball. The Friends of Alfie Johnson charity was founded raise money in the name of Alfie Johnson, who suffered sustained brain damage through oxygen starvation at birth. Now Alfie’s needs… Read more »
Posts By: gareth edwards
Have You Claimed Your Marriage Tax Allowance Yet?
The Marriage Tax allowance was established by the government to help married couples and people in civil partnerships, where one partner is a standard rate income tax payer and the other does not pay tax. The allowance works by letting the non-tax payer transfer £1,190 of their Personal Allowance to their partner. Around 4 million… Read more »
Making Tax Digital – Is it the end of the tax return?
HMRC’s “Making Tax Digital” programme (cf our news item from September 2016 “HMRC wants you to be software savvy“.) has started to make real progress with the recent launch of Personal Tax Accounts. Making Tax Digital (MTD) is intended to create a “real time” tax system where both businesses and individuals interact digitally with HMRC… Read more »
National Minimum Wage Rates 2018
Rates Change on April 1st 2018 Time to update your payroll system because National Minimum Wage rates are changing from April 1st. Here’s a before and after list for you to check. Age 2017 2018 25 and over £7.50 £7.83 21 to 24 £7.05 £7.38 18 to 20 £5.60 £5.90 Under 18 £4.05 £4.20 Apprentice £3.50… Read more »
Don’t caught by fake HMRC “phishing” attacks
“Phishing” is the practice of sending out emails, texts and even social media direct messages that pretend to be from a reputable source and try and get you to provide personal details that could be used to defraud you. HMRC has become the unwitting dupe for many phishing expeditions because we tend to take extra… Read more »
The “Snooper Computer” has arrived
It is going to be much harder to keep secrets from the tax man in future with the recent launch of HMRC’s Connect computer system. The system has automatic access to numerous government and private sector information sources. The list of places it has access too is frighteningly large. It includes; UK and overseas banks… Read more »
Card Fee Abolition. Good and Bad News
You probably already know that as from January 13th organisations are no longer allowed to impose surcharges on consumers for purchases made by debit and credit cards. From a consumer perspective it takes away some of those nasty shocks we used to get at the payment stage of a transaction. For instance the budget airlines be… Read more »
Budget Overview 2017
To mark Chancellor Phillip Hammond’s second budget we have created a downloadable document with a complete overview of his announcements. With the background of a potential economic downturn and continuing political uncertainty surrounding Brexit negotiations , the Chancellor did not have lots of room for manoeuvre. However there were one or two pleasant surprises to… Read more »
Moving
