The rain must stop soon surely? We will then no doubt get a brief dry period during which they will decide it was “the wrong type of rain” and promptly introduce the ever popular annual hosepipe ban!
However if you can turn your thoughts away from the weather for a short while it is worth remembering that the end of the current tax year is fast approaching on 5th April and as usual now is the time to consider some tax planning matters such as:
a) Are you drawing sufficient income from your business to cover your personal allowance for the current tax year of £9,440
b) Will you draw sufficient income to use up your basic rate band for Income tax at 20%? You can have income totalling £41,450 in the year to 5th April 2014 before you will pay any higher rate tax!
c) Have you utilised your annual Capital Gains Tax exemption which amounts to £10,900? Any gains made up to this amount will be completely free of Capital Gains Tax, which is otherwise charged at 18% or 28 % depending on your total level of taxable income.
d) Have you made use of your annual gifts exemption of £3,000 for inheritance tax purposes?
e) Have you made the maximum advantage of your Cash ISA entitlement of £5,760 or Stocks and Shares ISA with a maximum contribution of £11,520!
f) Have you made the maximum tax allowable pension contribution for this year? This could be £50k but perhaps even more if you have any unused relief available from earlier years!
g) Finally if your pension fund is substantial i.e. more than £1.25m you may need to apply for “fixed protection” in order to avoid a substantial tax charge at a later date.
Please speak to your Barnes Roffe partner if you need help on any of the matters listed above.
The above list is not exhaustive but hopefully is food for thought!
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PLEASE NOTE: By the very nature of this type of information the details of tax law might have changed since they were published, so contact your Barnes Roffe partner before acting on any matter contained in these documents.