Tax

Latest news

Image for ps712bn september tax take wont plug fiscal black hole

Tax | £71.2bn September tax take won’t plug fiscal black hole

Tax take for September hit £71.2bn, up an eye watering £7.7bn on the same time last year, highlighting the shocking impact of soaring tax rates and fiscal drag

21 Oct 2025

Tax | Q&A: higher rate stamp duty on spousal property sale

In this week’s Q&A, Marsha Haywood, adviser at Croner-i VIP Tax Team, explains liability for higher rate stamp duty land tax on replacement of main residence by spouse

21 Oct 2025

Tax

Property Tax

Tax Compliance

Image for pre pack saves some pizza hut restaurants

Business | Pre-pack saves some Pizza Hut restaurants

Pizza Hut has been sold in a prepack deal to US hospitality giant saving only 64 restaurants after private equity backed owner faced HMRC winding up petition

21 Oct 2025

Business

Companies

Private Equity

Restructuring & Insolvency

Tax

HMRC

Tax | HMRC website hit by Amazon Web Services outage

Online services at HMRC were knocked out by global outage of Amazon Web Services (AWS) for several hours on Monday morning, putting burden on phone lines

20 Oct 2025

Tax

HMRC

Technology

Image for student avoids prison promoting vat fraud instagram

Business | Student avoids prison for promoting VAT fraud on Instagram

A student from London has become first person to be convicted of encouraging others to defraud HMRC on social media

20 Oct 2025

Tax | HMRC clarifies NI calculation method for directors

Directors on PAYE are being warned to check their National Insurance contributions (NICs) are correctly calculated to reflect any changes to previous tax years as two cuts in rate occurred

17 Oct 2025

Tax | HMRC guidance ‘too woolly’ to stop tax avoidance

Quality of guidance and ‘menagerie of schemes’ was criticised when leading tax experts were questioned over government plans to crack down on tax avoidance promoters

16 Oct 2025

Tax | CGT crackdown on second home sales raises £256m

Property sellers are in the sights of HMRC as it ramps up compliance activity, targeting underreported gains with 10,000 sellers underpaying capital gains tax

16 Oct 2025

Tax

Property Tax

HMRC

Tax | HMRC pulls in life science and AI experts to advise on R&D tax relief

Following clampdown on extensive abuse of R&D tax relief, HMRC sets up R&D advisory panel with six experts on life sciences, artificial intelligence and advanced manufacturing to improve understanding of complex area

16 Oct 2025

Tax

Business Tax

HMRC

Tax | Q&A: tax and buy to let sale

In this week’s Q&A, Ria Dhillon, tax adviser at Croner-i VIP Tax Team, explains the tax implications when selling a buy to let residential property when an option is granted

14 Oct 2025

Tax

Property Tax

Tax Compliance

Image for farmers hold out ps5m inheritance tax respite

Tax | Farmers hold out for £5m inheritance tax respite

With the Budget fast approaching, the Chancellor might be softening her stance on inheritance tax for farm estates with the latest pre-Budget rumours hinting at changes to remove smaller family owned farms from the new rules

13 Oct 2025

Tax

Inheritance Tax

Politics

Image for wealth tax would be economically destructive

Tax | Wealth tax would be ‘economically destructive’

Calls for a wealth tax should be firmly rejected by the chancellor as there would be no revenues until at least 2029 as HMRC wrestles with complex new systems

10 Oct 2025

Tax

Budget

Image for court rejects hippodrome casino ps447k vat appeal

Tax | Court rejects Hippodrome Casino £447k VAT appeal

Owners of Hippodrome Casino lose VAT appeal to treat free food and drink for gamblers as non-taxable supplies for gaming

10 Oct 2025

Tax

VAT

Case Reports

Image for hmrc connect tool brings record ps46bn unpaid tax

Tax | HMRC Connect tool brings in record £4.6bn in unpaid tax

All powerful data analysis tool Connect raises additional £4.6bn in single year as thousands of HMRC staff use the big data network to root out non-compliant taxpayers

9 Oct 2025

Tax | Confectionery is too sweet for HMRC in VAT rows

As HMRC widens the VAT confectionery net, Alex Nicholson, VAT & indirect tax partner at Johnston Carmichael, breaks down what this shift means for businesses

9 Oct 2025