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In the Labour Party’s latest manifesto, the party pledged not to increase National Insurance, Income Tax, or VAT to avoid higher taxes for working people.

However, Capital Gains Tax (CGT) was not mentioned in this pledge, with Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves receiving many questions about this omission yet providing no definite answer about Labour’s plans for CGT.

This led to predictions about a possible increase in CGT, which is a tax levied on profits earned from the sale of property, shares, or other assets.

We began our drive toward net zero in earnest in 2022, having had our efforts restricted in 2021 because of the pandemic.

We realised straight away that Net Zero is a mammoth task and we might not get there, but we were determined to try. In our efforts for success we would risk improvement and failure.

We knew little about the subject matter and we are still learning day by day.

But this is what we did, and it is also what we are still doing. It is a JOURNEY.

Given HMRC’s increasing concerns about electronic sales suppression (ESS), the tax agency is launching a campaign of one-to-many letters, targeting businesses that may have outstanding taxes to pay after misusing their till systems to reduce their recorded sales.

ESS tools allow till systems to alter or hide individual transactions while creating a credible audit trail. This enables businesses to reduce their reported turnover and pay less tax – including Income Tax, Corporation Tax, and VAT – while appearing to be tax-compliant.

Using ESS software or hardware to adjust the value of transactions or only record a portion of sales, for example, is a form of tax evasion. HMRC is therefore sending informal warning letters to discourage this deception and ensure that any guilty parties make things right.

Without a digital invoice processing system, companies leave themselves vulnerable to invoice fraud – a scam that almost a third of businesses have been targeted by in the last year.

Employees can easily process fake invoices if they appear genuine and the amount is below the company’s payment threshold, paying money into the bank accounts of fraudsters.

Though fraud against UK businesses has reduced in the last few years, over £1.2 billion was lost to invoice fraud in 2022, and developing technologies ensure that it remains a growing threat.

It’s vital for all businesses to learn how to recognise potential invoice fraud and avoid falling for this common scam – so here’s what you should know about how to prevent invoice fraud.

Every year, HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) publishes the latest tax gap figures – revealing the difference between the amount of tax due and the amount that they actually collect.

Compared with a tax gap of 7.4% in 2005–2006, the first year of taking these records, the most recent revised figures for the 2022–2023 tax year put the current tax gap at 4.8%.

While this percentage has stayed the same since 2020–2021, in monetary terms, the tax gap has been increasing along with tax liabilities – rising from £31 billion the previous year to £35.8 billion in 2021–2022, then reaching a record high of £39.8 billion in 2022–2023.

This is the largest the tax gap has ever been in cash terms, and while some of the increase will be a result of non-payment due to the rise in company insolvencies affected by the pandemic, small businesses are now taking the blame for up to 60% of all uncollected taxes.

On top of the 1p cut to the National Insurance rate that was announced in last year’s Autumn Statement, the Spring Budget announced in March 2024 introduced a further 2p cut.

This means that for self-employed workers paying Class 4 National Insurance contributions (NICs), the rate will drop from 9% to 6% for the tax year from April 2024 to April 2025.