Plain-English notes
on UK tax — when
there’s something to say.
9 entries
The 2025/26 director's salary & dividend split, calculated properly
With the dividend allowance halved to £500 and corporation tax marginal rates settled, the optimal extraction has moved. We model three common owner-managed scenarios.
Status Determination Statements — three years on from private-sector reform
A practical look at what good SDS evidencing looks like in 2026, what HMRC has been challenging, and where contractors are still getting the determination wrong.
Section 24 and the question of incorporation, revisited
Mortgage interest relief restriction has been the law for some years now. With Bristol BTL yields where they sit in 2026, we re-examine the threshold at which transferring a portfolio into a Ltd actually pays off.
The merged R&D scheme and what it means for SME claimants
The merged scheme has been live since accounting periods beginning April 2024. Two years in, we look at what is actually being approved and what is being challenged.
The VAT cliff at £90,000 — when to register, when to stay below
A frank look at the threshold, the artificial avoidance HMRC scrutinises, and the operational decisions worth making well before turnover gets close.
How to receive an HMRC enquiry without panicking
A small playbook from our practice. What to send, what not to volunteer, when to bring in a qualified tax adviser, and when a code-of-practice 8 letter requires you to stop replying directly.
OSS, IOSS and the post-Brexit reality of selling into the EU
Five years after the change, we still inherit clients with broken EU-VAT settings on Shopify. A brief on how to set things up so they actually report correctly.
A note on the 2026 Spring Statement — what changed and what didn't
Restraint, mostly. But two threshold tweaks and one capital-allowance simplification will affect owner-managed companies more than the headlines suggested.