Tax Dispatch: October 2023

Welcome to Tax Dispatch: the latest roundup from BKL’s tax experts. In each issue we cover a different specialist area of tax, while highlighting some things you may have missed.

We also share our team’s good news and successes, such as…

Accounting Excellence Awards 2023: two shortlistings and a win!

We were at the Accounting Excellence Awards night at London’s Roundhouse. We went there as finalists in two categories: Breakout Star of the Year for our Senior Tax Manager Sam Inkersole and Tax Team of the Year for our team as a whole. Here we are with a little souvenir from the night: the award for Tax Team of the Year!

Congratulations to our team on putting excellence into action and getting this well-deserved recognition. After winning Best Tax Employer at the Taxation Awards in May, this was the sequel we were hoping for!

Thank you to all the clients and contacts who help us make BKL a great place to be a tax adviser. We look forward to bringing you more news as our team goes from strength to strength.

Other recent achievements

Three members of our private client team have been included in the latest edition of the Spear’s Accountants & Tax Advisers Index: Geraint Jones (Head of Private Client Tax), Lindsay House (Director of Trusts) and Jeff Hartstone (Partner).

Our Senior VAT Adviser Simon Levine has been appointed to the Chartered Institute of Taxation (CIOT)’s Indirect Tax Committee. This recognition of Simon’s expertise follows BKL’s shortlisting in the Best VAT/Indirect Tax Team category of this year’s Taxation Awards.

Tolley’s Property Taxation 2023-24, to be published by LexisNexis in November, will feature a chapter by Geraint Jones on overseas investors.

Our latest tax webinars

In September, our Head of Tax Anthony Newgrosh hosted a webinar on R&D tax relief. It’s available to watch on our website here.

With effect from 8 August, HMRC now require the completion and submission of an additional information form in support of the claim before the actual submission of the return in which the claim is actually made.  If this procedure is not followed, HMRC will remove any claim from the returns they are made in.

HMRC set out the information that they require in the additional information form here. For anyone thinking about making an R&D tax relief claim, or advising on one, Anthony and our tax team would be pleased to help.

In July, our Business Tax Director Helena Kanczula joined Anthony to host our webinar on corporate tax issues amid rising interest rates. The hikes in interest rates mean that more companies will be brought within rules such as Corporate Interest Restriction which they may not have needed to consider since the rules were first introduced. There are also numerous other rules which affect the deductibility of interest and may become more relevant in the current economic environment.

Anthony and Helena explored some of these rules, and the less well understood aspects, which could provide some welcome relief. You can watch the recording here on our website. Look out for a follow-up article from Helena later in the year.

If you have plans to invest in UK property or construction projects, it’s important to be aware of the tax issues you may face. For investors based outside the UK, these issues can be even more complex – in particular, property VAT and the Construction Industry Scheme (CIS). Our webinar in July explored these factors.

The hosts were Simon Levine, Jason Appel (Head of Property and Construction) and Petra Deters (Head of German Inward Investment). You’ll find the recording on our website here.

Later this month, Anthony will be sharing his expertise via the R3 Training Academy’s session on key tax issues in restructuring.

Browse our recent & upcoming webinars & other events

Tax Dispatch focus: Stamp duty land tax

This edition’s feature article is by Andrew Levene, our Director of Property Taxes. He has extensive experience of advising both large international and owner managed businesses on corporate transactions including buying, selling and reorganising a business. Andrew has focused for much of his career on property & construction, advising groups, investment funds and other property owners on structuring their transactions.

Among Andrew’s specialisms is stamp duty land tax (SDLT). He keeps a close eye on First-tier Tribunal decisions involving taxpayers who attempt SDLT planning through applying mixed property rates or multiple dwellings relief (MDR). Earlier this year, he reported on the case of the Suterwallas, who claimed that a paddock adjacent to their house was non-residential and so was a mixed purchase, meaning they could apply the non-residential SDLT rates.

More recently, Andrew has written about an apparent shift in HMRC’s attention from paddocks to domestic garages. His new article explores two cases that have demonstrated this: Kozlowski and Espalier Ventures Property (Landsdowne Road) Ltd.

SDLT and garages

Guest article: lost deposits and tax

In addition to insights from our tax experts, we’re pleased to bring you articles from Mark McLaughlin. Mark is highly experienced as a tax author, editor and consultant.

In this article, Mark looks at the tax treatment of forfeited deposits to purchase property.

Lost deposits: going… going… gone!

Our tax mailings and articles

Thank you to everyone who follows our BrassTax articles. We’re glad to have you along as we explore the complexities and surprises of the tax landscape.

Recent BrassTax topics have included:

  • Lord Sugar’s alleged failed attempt at tax planning
  • Effective debt waivers
  • Special securities
  • Exceptional circumstances and the statutory residence test
  • Unaccustomed receipts and their tax treatment

If you don’t already receive BrassTax, you’re most welcome to subscribe via this page.

Some of our tax articles are published straight to our website. Recent examples:

  • The Labour Party and taxation: what can we expect?
  • Associated company rules

Browse our articles

BKL in the professional press

When is a Taxation article not a taxation article? In June, Taxation magazine published an article by BKL copywriter David Goldstein on Certified B Corporations (B Corps): a global community of businesses dedicated to balancing profit and purpose. BKL is one of a growing number of UK accountancy B Corps; others are featured in the article, which you can read on our website here.

Terry Jordan, one of our Tax Consultants, is a regular contributor to the Taxation Readers’ Forum, where tax professionals seek each other’s advice. Terry’s focus is on queries involving inheritance tax.

Thank you to Tax Journal and ICAEW TAXline for republishing several of our recent BrassTax articles.

Tax jobs at BKL

Why just read about our award-winning tax team when you could be part of it?

If you or anyone you know is looking to begin or develop their career in tax, we have two opportunities:

  • Tax Consultancy Senior / Assistant Manager
  • Trainee Corporate Tax Adviser: August/September 2024 start

Find out more and apply

Key dates coming up

14 October: Quarterly instalment payments (large company)
1st payment for 31 March 2024 accounting period due
(also, 2nd payment for 31 December 2023 period, 3rd payment for 30 September 2023 period and 4th payment for 30 June 2023 period)

14 October: Quarterly instalment payments (very large company)
1st payment for 31 July 2024 accounting period due
(also, 2nd payment for 30 April 2024 period, 3rd payment for 31 January 2024 period and 4th payment for 31 October 2023 period)

31 October: Filing deadline for 31 October 2022 corporation tax returns (and for amendments to 31 October 2021 returns)

1 November: Corporation tax liabilities for accounting periods ended 31 January 2023 become due for payment

14 November and 14 December: Quarterly instalment payments (large company) potentially
1st payments for 30 April 2024 & 31 May 2024 accounting periods
2nd payments for 31 January 2024 & 29 February 2024 periods
3rd payments for 31 October 2023 & 30 November 2023 periods
4th payments for 31 July 2023 & 31 August 2023 periods

14 November and 14 December: Quarterly instalment payments (very large company) potentially
1st payments for 31 August 2024 & 30 September 2024 accounting periods
2nd payments for 31 May 2024 & 30 June 2024 periods
3rd payments for 29 February 2024 & 31 March 2024 periods
4th payments for 30 November 2023 & 31 December 2023 periods

22 November: Autumn Statement 2023

30 November: Filing deadline for 30 November 2022 corporation tax returns (and for amendments to 30 November 2021 returns)

1 November and 1 December: Corporation tax liabilities for accounting periods ended 31 January 2023 and 28 February 2023 become due for payment

Are there any particular topics you’d like us to cover in a future edition of Tax Dispatch? Let us know by getting in touch with your usual BKL contact or by using our enquiry form.

NICOLA HALL

BILSHAN MENSAH

Sam Inkersole

In 2022, Sam won the Taxation’s Rising Star award at the Taxation Awards in and was named in the Accountancy Age 35 Under 35.

Jon Wedge

While Jon’s client work focuses on the financial services sector, he also oversees the firm’s assurance service, as well as supporting the trainees following in his footsteps.

ELANA DIMMER

Elana joined us in 2017 as an ACA trainee, after graduating from Durham University where she had studied languages. She is now a manager in our assurance team.

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