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Under Ofgem’s latest price cap revision, annual energy bills for typical households are expected to fall to £2,074 from 1st July 2023 – the lowest in over a year.

The Energy Price Guarantee (EPG) that the government introduced last October capped energy prices per unit to limit the average bill to £2,500 a year until 30th June 2023, helping domestic consumers to save compared to Ofgem’s £3,280 cap for the current quarter.

The EPG is due to increase to £3,000 from 1st July and will remain in place until March 2024, but Ofgem reducing their cap to £2,074 means most people are unlikely to pay that much.

This seems like good news for families, home-based employees, and small business owners working from a residence – but will energy bills really change that drastically?

In March 2023, as the 2022–2023 tax year drew to a close, the Office for Budget Responsibility published its full ‘Economic and fiscal outlook’ report, detailing its economic forecasts for the next five years.

The report predicts the effectiveness of policy measures announced from the Autumn Statement 2022 to the Spring Budget 2023, and whether the government will meet its fiscal targets by the 2027–2028 tax year.

Amongst the projected outcomes are an expected increase in higher rate taxpayers and corporate tax yield – read on to learn more about the UK tax forecast and what these figures could mean for you.

If you’re self-employed and have to submit your own Self-Assessment tax returns, the new tax year might be longer than you were expecting.

Normally, self-employed taxpayers are taxed on their profits made in their accounting year ending within the tax year. However, the government wants to speed up the tax return process by making self-employed earners pay tax on their profits made in the tax year instead.

Moving from the individual’s accounting year system – or ‘current year basis’ – to a tax year basis means catching up by paying tax on more than twelve months of profits in one tax year.

Unless your accounting year ends on 31st March or 5th April, more or less aligning with the tax year already, this will begin to take effect in the current 2023–2024 tax year. Read on to learn about why this is happening and how it could impact your self-employed business.

A recent investigation into Child Trust Funds by the National Audit Office (NAO) revealed that almost £400 million is languishing across hundreds of thousands of unclaimed accounts, with many children unaware that they could have several hundred pounds waiting for them.

Child Trust Funds were set up by the Labour government under Gordon Brown, creating savings accounts for more than 6 million children who were born between September 2002–January 2011. The government paid around £2 billion into these accounts in free cash vouchers of up to £250, or £500 for low-income families, so each account will have at least this amount in it.

With Child Trust Funds being locked until the child’s eighteenth birthday, and no new accounts being opened since the scheme was scrapped over a decade ago, many parents will have forgotten about them – or may have never been aware that their child has one.

However, the money is still out there and can still be claimed – if you were born between 1st September 2002 and 2nd January 2011, or the parent of a child who was born between these dates, this blog explains what you should know about these forgotten funds.

The most recent and second ever Tax Day (Tax Administration and Maintenance Day) took place on 27th April 2023 – an event that is becoming a fiscal calendar fixture following the Spring Budget. This day focuses on technical proposals for future tax policies.

This April, the UK government published a series of policy updates and consultation announcements, which primarily aim at modernising the current tax system and reducing the tax gap (the amount of tax that should be paid to HMRC that isn’t actually being paid).

Here is a summary of the steps the government is taking to update the tax system over the next couple of years, and who may be affected by these key areas.

There are two accounting methods used by small businesses – cash basis accounting and accrual basis accounting. Cash basis is often favoured by sole traders and partnerships, as it involves recording revenue and expenses when payments are received and made, while accrual basis requires recording transactions as they occur rather than when invoices are paid.

Small businesses using the cash basis method don’t have to wrangle with accruals or most capital allowances, but there is a turnover limit that forces businesses to switch from cash basis to accrual basis at a certain point. The government wants to make this simpler to help new businesses meet their tax obligations as they grow.

With HMRC looking into cash basis reform, here’s how the cash basis scheme could change, and how it could affect your small business.