As chartered tax accountants, tax is a topic which we discuss with our clients on a daily basis. In this day and age, almost all of our clients know they can go to the Internet for tax advice, but often what they get is generic information. Case in point: there are plenty of materials on the Internet advising how a self-employed person can reduce their tax bill and most of them usually begins with, “check your tax code…” – but hardly anyone mentions tax free allowances or even how pensioners can be exempt from National Insurance when they become self-employed. This is why we’ve been motivated to write this post, with the aim of highlighting these often overlooked areas:

Tax Free Allowance

A married couple have a tax allowance each and some arrangements can maximise the total benefit of this. Let’s take a common scenario where one spouse is an entrepreneur and the other is staying at home to bring up the children. The stay at home partner could be allocated tasks from their husband or wife’s workload, and be paid from the entrepreneur’s business for doing so. This could provide the stay at home partner with an income that is effectively tax free if the income is less than their annual Tax Free Allowance. Similarly, the Entrepreneur can use the payment as a deduction from their taxable income, possibly reducing their tax bill too. This win-win situation is legal, but often overlooked by entrepreneurs and small business owners.

Self-Employed After Pension

We have seen many pensioners going on to set-up a small business which helps to keep them active, mentally and physically. If you fall into this category, i.e. you’re still working beyond the Government’s official pension age, you should cancel any National Insurance payments to HMRC. Continuing to pay into the scheme will not make any difference to the state pension that you are entitled to. However, you do need to make a formal application to HRMC about this. The UK government has been making radical changes to the state pension ages. To find out your current pension age, click here. And, in 2020, the state pension age is to be increased to 66 for both men and women.   

At TaxAgility, we believe in delivering a highly-personalised tax service to our clients. This is why we always offer our first consultation for free to allow us to learn about your business and your personal financial circumstances, so we can create a tax accounting solution that is as unique as you.

Call us now at 020 8780 2349 or complete the enquiry form and we will call you back.