In our regular Q&A series from Croner Taxwise, in the run-up to the self assessment deadline of 31 January, Alexandra Fielding looks at ways to mitigate the risks of reaching the £100,000 personal allowance taper through the use of charitable donations

HMRC has issued guidance on delegated authority claims handling by lawyers, which may create additional VAT costs for law firms and lead to disputes with their insurance clients, RSM has warned

There are just over 70 days until Making Tax Digital (MTD) goes live in the UK. James Bunney looks at several other countries where digital reporting has been introduced in recent years

Over 80,000 people on lower incomes have signed up to the government’s new saving account, Help to Save, depositing over £10m

Lisa Macpherson ATT TEP, head of tax technical at PKF Francis Clark, unpicks the complexity of the inheritance tax residence nil rate band (RNRB), transferable nil rate band and compliance issues, with case studies of typical scenarios

The Charity Commission has concluded a five-year investigation into The Cup Trust, a charity involved in a complex tax avoidance scheme worth £46m, having found ‘clear mismanagement and misconduct’ on the part of sole trustee Mountstar

A curse by a witch, being too short to reach the post box and cold fingers were among the more outlandish excuses given to HMRC for not completing a tax return on time, with expenses claims for family holidays and 55-inch TVs also being turned down

HMRC has extended the deadline for responses to its consultation on the taxation of trusts by a month, with feedback now welcomed up to 28 February

The UK has signed a new Israel tax agreement to update the double taxation convention (DTC) with the country, offering reduced dividend tax rates for inward investors

With less than 80 days to the rollout of Making Tax Digital for VAT, a number of professional institutes, inlcuding AAT, ACCA, ATT, CIOT and STEP, have released initial engagement letters defining client relationships under the new digital reporting framework

A case of disputed late filing penalties saw the First Tier Tribunal (FTT) uphold an appeal by an employee who claimed that HMRC should have known his address as they had previously been in correspondence with him

HMRC has lost a case involving the VAT status of a ‘raw chocolate brownie’ containing no egg, dairy or gluten but which a First Tier Tribunal (FTT) has ruled is a cake and not a chocolate bar, and should therefore be zero-rated, opening the way for manufacturer Pulsin’ to reclaim £300,000 in tax