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Everyone likes to save time and effort at work if they can, and traders can do just that by using the simplified expenses system to calculate their tax deductions for business mileage and the use of home for work. 

Sarah Bradford explains how traders can take advantage of the simplified expenses system to reduce their administrative burden.

In R (Hotelbeds UK Ltd) v HMRC [2025] EWHC 2312, the Administrative Court directed HMRC to allow input tax deduction notwithstanding the business holding no VAT invoices at all. Whilst welcome for businesses in general, it is important to appreciate the limits of the judgment and where it stands in the wider legal order.

In the first part of this two-part series, Fabian Barth lays out the circumstances under which retained EU law allows taxpayers to deduct input tax even in the absence of a valid VAT invoice. 

In most cases, it should be straightforward to establish whether a company is a trading company for capital gains tax business asset disposal relief (BADR) purposes. 

Mark McLaughlin looks at the trading requirement for capital gains tax business asset disposal relief purposes.  

This article considers how an individual taxpayer may claim losses if an investment fails. Please note that we are covering only capital gains tax (CGT), etc., for individuals; the rules for companies are quite different.

Lee Sharpe looks at the options available to the individual when they make a loss on an investment. 

A company is a separate legal entity, distinct from the shareholders that own it. Consequently, if the directors and shareholders want to use the profits made by the company for their personal use, they will need to extract those profits first. There are various ways in which this can be done; some are more tax-efficient than others.  

Sarah Bradford considers options for extracting profits from a company in a tax-efficient manner in the 2024/25 tax year.

HMRC recently undertook a ‘One to Many’ letter campaign, wherein HMRC’s skilled data analysts undertake to mine nuggets from a huge range of sources to test for omissions or errors in tax returns. 

Lee Sharpe reports on HMRC getting all ‘Nancy Drew’ with its sleuthing over company reporting and shareholders’ dividend income returns. 

Some company shareholders may either be unaware or have forgotten about a relatively unknown capital gains tax (CGT) relief that offers a reduced CGT rate of only 10% on qualifying gains of up to £10m during their lifetime, if certain conditions are satisfied.  

Mark McLaughlin highlights a relatively unknown and infrequently used but generous capital gains tax relief.

Owner-managers can spend a significant amount of time and energy building a successful and profitable trading company.

Joe Brough looks at tax issues for business taxpayers and their tax advisers when a company is coming to an end.