National Insurance Contributions (Table D)

Class 1 (Employees)	Employee	Employer
Main NIC rate	12%	13.8%
No NIC on first	£166pw	£166pw
Main rate* charged up to	£962pw	no limit
2% rate on earnings above	£962pw	N/A
Employment allowance per qualifying business	N/A	£3,000

*Nil rate of employer NIC for employees under the age of 21 and apprentices under 25, up to £962pw.

Employer contributions (at 13.8%) are also due on most taxable benefits (Class 1A) and on tax paid on an employees behalf under a PAYE settlement agreement (Class 1B).

Class 2 (Self-employed)

Flat rate per week	£3
Small profits threshold	£6,365

Class 3 (Voluntary)

Flat rate per week

£15

Class 4 (Self-employed)

On profits £8,632 to £50,000	9.0%
On profits over £50,000	2.0%

Income Tax Rates and Allowances (Table A)

Main allowances	2019/20	2018/19
Personal Allowance (PA)	£12,500	£11,850
Blind Person’s Allowance	2,450	2,390
Rent a room relief	7,500	7,500
Trading income	1,000	1,000
Property income	1,000	1,000

*PA will be withdrawn at £1 for every £2 by which adjusted income exceeds £100,000. There will therefore be no allowance given if adjusted income is £125,000 or more (2018/19: £123,700).

£1,250 of the PA (2018/19: £1,190) can be transferred to a spouse or civil partner who is no more than a basic rate taxpayer, where both spouses were born after 5 April 1935.

If gross income exceeds it, the limit may be deducted instead of actual expenses.

Rate Bands	2019/20	2018/19
Basic Rate Band (BRB)	£37,500	£34,500
Higher Rate Band (HRB)	37,501-150,000	34,501-150,000
Additional rate	over 150,000	over 150,000
Personal Savings Allowance (PSA)
Basic rate taxpayer	1,000	1,000
Higher rate taxpayer	500	500
Dividend Allowance (DA)	2,000	2,000

BRB and additional rate threshold are increased by personal pension contributions (up to permitted limit) and Gift Aid donations.

Tax Rates	2019/20 and 2018/19
Rates differ for General, Savings and Dividend income within each band:
	G	S	D
Basic	20%	20%	7.5%
Higher	40%	40%	32.5%
Additional	45%	45%	38.1%

General income (salary, pensions, business profits, rent) usually uses personal allowance, basic rate and higher rate bands before savings income (interest). To the extent that savings income falls in the first £5,000 of the basic rate band, it is taxed at nil rather than 20%.

The PSA will tax interest at nil, where it would otherwise be taxable at 20% or 40%.

Dividends are normally taxed as the top slice of income. The DA taxes the first £2,000 of dividend income at nil, rather than the rate that would otherwise apply.

High Income Child Benefit Charge (HICBC)

1% of child benefit for each £100 of adjusted net income between £50,000 and £60,000.

Income Tax Scotland 2018/19	Band	Rate
The 2019/20 tax rates and bands for Scottish Taxpayers have not yet been announced.
Starter Rate	£2,000	19%
Basic Rate	2,001 12,150	20%
Intermediate Rate	12,151 31,580	21%
Higher Rate	31,581 150,000	41%
Top Rate	over 150,000	46%

The Scottish rates and bands do not apply for savings and dividend income, which are taxed at normal UK rates.

The 2019/20 tax rates and bands for Scottish Taxpayers have not yet been announced.

Remittance basis charge	2019/20	2018/19
For non-UK domiciled individuals who have been UK resident in at least:
7 of the preceding 9 tax years	£30,000	£30,000
12 of the preceding 14 tax years	60,000	60,000
15 of the preceding 20 tax years	Deemed to be UK domiciled for tax purposes

 

Registered Pensions (Table B)

	2019/20	2018/19
Lifetime allowance (LA)	£1,055,000	£1,030,000
Annual allowance (AA)	40,000	40,000

Annual relievable pension inputs are the higher of earnings (capped at AA) or £3,600.

The AA is usually reduced by £1 for every £2 by which relevant income exceeds £150,000, down to a minimum AA of £10,000. The AA can be reduced to £4,000, where certain pension drawings have been made.

Car and Fuel Benefits (Table C)

Cars

Taxable benefit: Chargeable value multiplied by chargeable percentage.

Chargeable value: Initial list price of car (including most accessories), reduced by any capital contribution (maximum £5,000) by employee when the car is first made available.

Chargeable percentage:

CO2 emissions (g/km)	Petrol	Diesel
0-50	16%	20%
51-75	19%	23%
76-94	22%	26%
Above 94	Add 1% for every 5g/km
Above 164 (petrol)/144 (diesel)	37% maximum

Car Fuel

Where employer provides fuel for private motoring in an employer-owned car, CO2-based percentage from above table multiplied by £24,100 (2018/19 £23,400).

Employee contributions for fuel do not reduce taxable figure unless all private fuel is paid for by the employee (in which case there is no benefit charge).

Making Tax Digital for VAT

The majority of businesses with VATable turnover above the £85,000 registration threshold will be required to maintain their VAT records using functional compatible software from the first VAT return period starting on or after 1 April 2019. It was announced during October that a limited range of more complex businesses will not be required to comply with the new rules until 1 October 2019. Concern has been expressed by Parliamentary committees and professional bodies that full-scale testing of the system has only recently started and awareness of the requirement among businesses is still patchy, but the Chancellor has not made any further announcements on the subject. It must therefore be assumed that the rules will be implemented as planned, another significant change to VAT three days after the UK leaves the EU.

Avoidance and evasion

There are as usual measures in the Budget to try to close loopholes. These include legislation targeted at businesses attempting to avoid UK tax by arranging for their UK business profits to accrue to entities resident in lower-tax territories (profit fragmentation). The UK profits will be increased to the commercial level for tax purposes.

From April 2020, the amount of payable Research & Development tax credit that a qualifying loss-making company can receive in any tax year will be restricted to three times the companys total PAYE and NIC liability for that year. This is described as a measure to prevent abusive and fraudulent claims.

The time limit for assessing unpaid tax involving offshore non-compliance (concealing undeclared income and gains, and amounts chargeable to Inheritance Tax, outside the UK) is to be increased to 12 years in cases not involving deliberate errors by the taxpayers. This is not retrospective in effect: the present four year time limit is not extended back to 2006. However, amounts undeclared from 2015 will be assessable until 2027.

Charities

Charities are exempt from tax on the profits of a trade if carrying on that activity is the purpose of the charity (e.g. fees at a charitable school). There is also an exemption for profits of a small-scale non-purpose trading activity to allow charities to make some money without falling into the charge to tax. The exemptions are currently £5,000 where turnover is up to £20,000, 25% of income where turnover is between £20,000 and £200,000, and £50,000 where turnover is over £200,000. From April 2019, the limits are increased to £8,000 on turnover up to £32,000 and £80,000 on turnover over £320,000 respectively. In between these limits, the 25% test still applies.

The limit for the Gift Aid Small Donations Scheme, which allows charities to claim Gift Aid on small amounts without requiring the donor to fill in a form, will be increased from £20 to £30 from 6 April 2019.

The 2017 Budget included an announcement of plans to simplify and clarify some of the conditions for Gift Aid relief to be claimed by charities from April 2019, where a benefit is provided to the donor. At the moment there are three monetary limits on such benefits that must be considered, and a number of extra-statutory concessions that allow the harsher effects of the law to be ignored. The limits will be simplified from three to two, and the concessions will be enacted in the law to provide certainty.

First-time buyers

A relief from SDLT was introduced in the November 2017 Budget to exempt purchases by first-time buyers of properties costing up to £300,000. This is being extended to shared ownership properties valued at up to £500,000. The exemption will apply to the initial share purchased up to £300,000 (any excess over that figure will be charged at 5%). Further shares will not qualify for the exemption. This relief is being backdated to the introduction of the original first-time buyers relief on 22 November 2017.

Landlords

Income Tax relief for interest against rental income is being restricted to the basic rate of tax, with the restriction phased in over four years. This began in 2017/18; in the third year of the new rules, 2019/20, only 25% of interest paid will be allowed as a deductible expense. The remainder will be eligible for a reduction in tax liability at 20%. The rules are complicated and can produce unexpected results.

Annual Tax on Enveloped Dwellings

The annual tax charges on residential properties worth more than £500,000 that are owned through companies and other envelope arrangements will go up for 2019/20 in line with inflation. The charge on a dwelling worth between £500,000 and £1 million will be £3,650 (up from £3,600); the maximum charge on a dwelling worth over £20 million will be £232,350 (up from £226,950).

Registration threshold

Last year the Chancellor announced that the VAT registration threshold will remain frozen at £85,000 until 5 April 2020. He has now confirmed that it will stay unchanged for a further two years after that, until 5 April 2022. The deregistration limit (£83,000) will also stay unchanged. The Budget releases note that the Office of Tax Simplification has recommended a reduction in the threshold because it distorts the behaviour of businesses: they may be restricted from growing by fear of exceeding the limit. The Government prefers to keep a large number of businesses out of VAT altogether by maintaining the threshold at its current level, but will look again at the question once the terms of the UKs exit from the EU have become clear.

International trade

The Government has already published a number of statements about the possible VAT and customs consequences of a no-deal Brexit, while negotiations continue in the hope of a favourable agreement. There is nothing in the Budget about international trade at all, presumably because it is all too uncertain or sensitive for any meaningful statements to be made.

Vouchers

Significant changes will be made to the VAT treatment of face value vouchers that are issued on or after 1 January 2019. Single purpose vouchers, which can only be used to buy a single category of goods or services (standard rated, lower rated, zero rated or exempt) will be treated as the underlying item when bought and sold. Multi-purpose vouchers, where the liability of the supply on redemption is uncertain, will be outside the scope of VAT until they are redeemed, when in most cases the face value will be used by the retailer to calculate the output tax. This is a big change from the existing rules for anyone who issues and redeems vouchers, and also for intermediaries who market and distribute them.

VAT grouping

The right of companies and Limited Liability Partnerships under common control to join in a single VAT registration will be extended to non-corporates including individuals, partnerships and trusts, under conditions set out in the Finance Bill. Grouping will remain optional.

Online marketplaces

A new system of registration and regulation of online marketplaces has been put in place over the last year, and comes fully into force in April 2019. Anyone operating an online marketplace should be taking steps to comply with the new requirements.

Construction industry fraud

Measures to counter missing trader fraud in the construction industry have also been developed over the last year, in consultation with stakeholders. A reverse charge mechanism will apply to supplies of construction services to VAT-registered customers from 1 October 2019. The supplier will no longer charge VAT on specified supplies, but instead the customer will put the VAT on purchases as output tax on the VAT return (and recover it as input tax if eligible). This will require a significant change of systems for those affected, both as suppliers and customers. The Budget included an announcement of further technical changes to these rules to make them work as intended.

Corporation Tax rates

There are no changes to the Corporation Tax rates previously announced: the present 19% rate continues for the year commencing 1 April 2019, then will fall to 17% from 1 April 2020.

Capital Allowances on plant

The Annual Investment Allowance, on which a business can claim 100% relief on the cost of purchasing plant and machinery, will increase to £1 million from its current £200,000 for two years from 1 January 2019. There are complex rules where a period of account straddles the change of AIA rate, so those planning to spend more than £200,000 per year on plant should take advice to make sure that they qualify for the best relief.

The rate of writing down allowance on the special rate pool (mainly long life assets, integral fixtures in buildings and cars with emissions ratings over 110g/km purchased since April 2018) will be reduced from 8% to 6% from April 2019. The main rate of writing down allowance remains 18%

Enhanced Capital Allowances (currently 100% First Year Allowances) were introduced in 2001 for expenditure on qualifying plant which uses energy efficiently or is environmentally beneficial. As is common, the list of qualifying technologies is being updated for 2019/20; however, the scheme is being abolished with effect from 1 April 2020 for companies and 6 April 2020 for unincorporated businesses. It will clearly be beneficial to consider advancing planned expenditure before those dates, if total expenditure on plant would otherwise exceed the Annual Investment Allowance for the period. However, Enhanced Capital Allowances for electric vehicle charge points will continue to 31 March 2023.

Capital Allowances on buildings

A new Structures and Buildings Allowance is to be introduced for expenditure on new non-residential structures and buildings where the contracts for the construction works are entered into on or after 29 October 2018. Relief will not be available for the cost of land or dwellings. The allowance will be 2% on a flat rate basis to write off the cost of construction (including demolition and land alterations necessary for construction) over 50 years. There will be no balancing adjustment on a sale “ the purchaser will take over the remainder of the allowances and the writing down period.

Expenditure on integral features and fittings of a building that currently qualify for allowances on plant and machinery will continue to qualify in the same way, including being eligible for the Annual Investment Allowance up to its annual limit.

Capital losses

New rules will apply from April 2020 to restrict the offset of companies brought forward capital losses in a similar way to the recently-introduced treatment of trading (and some other) losses. Only 50% of gains will be eligible to be relieved by brought forward losses, but there will be unrestricted use of the first £5 million of income or capital losses each year, which means that 99% of companies will not be affected.

Intangible assets

The Government intends to introduce a targeted relief for the cost of goodwill in the acquisition of businesses with eligible intellectual property from April 2019. With effect from 7 November 2018, the Government will also reform the de-grouping charge rules which apply when a group sells a company that owns intangibles, so that if the share sale is exempt the de-grouping gain on the intangibles will also be exempt.

Offshore receipts in respect of intangible property

To address the avoidance of UK tax by multinational groups paying royalties on UK sales – a deductible expense for UK Corporation Tax “ to group companies based in low-tax jurisdictions, a new tax charge will be introduced. Following consultation, the original proposal has been considerably amended, in particular imposing a direct charge on the recipient rather than a withholding tax on the payer. The introduction of the measure has been confirmed with a threshold for UK sales of £10 million, an exemption for income that is taxed at appropriate levels, and an exemption for income relating to intangible property that is supported by sufficient local substance. It will apply from 6 April 2019, with anti-avoidance provisions operating from 29 October 2018.

Digital Services Tax

To address the perceived avoidance of profit taxes by multinational technology companies, the Government proposes to introduce a 2% tax on the revenues of certain digital businesses that derive value from their UK users. The tax will target search engines, social media platforms and online marketplaces. It will only apply to revenue above £25 million per year in businesses with global revenues above £500 million, and there will be rules to protect businesses with very low profit margins or losses.

Business rates

The Chancellor announced a number of measures to extend further the relief from business rates for struggling retailers. The most significant of these is that, for the two years until the next revaluation in April 2021, retailers who operate from premises with a rateable value of up to £51,000 will be entitled to a one-third cut in their rates.

Rates

As previously announced, the nil rate band remains frozen at £325,000 until the end of 2020/21. A residential nil rate band (RNRB) enhancement began to take effect for death transfers from 6 April 2017, applying an additional nil rate band (initially £100,000; £150,000 from 6 April 2019 to 5 April 2020; and rising to £175,000 by 2020/21) where a taxpayers residence (or assets representing one following a sale) is left to direct descendants. A married couple will potentially then be able to leave £1 million free of IHT to their descendants (£325,000 plus £175,000 from each parent), but the rules are complicated. Minor changes have been made to the RNRB rules to ensure that they work as intended.

Rates

The annual exempt amount rises from £11,700 to £12,000 for 2019/20. The rates of tax are unchanged at 10% (total income and gains within the taxpayers basic rate limit) or 20% (gains above the basic rate limit) on assets in general, but 18% or 28% on residential property that is not eligible for the main residence exemption, and also on  carried interest of investment fund managers.

Most trusts enjoy half the annual exempt amount (£6,000) and pay tax at 20% or 28% on chargeable gains.

Main residence exemption

The exemption of gains on a taxpayers only or main residence is one of the most generous tax reliefs of all. For disposals from April 2020, there will be two changes to restrict what the Chancellor considers to be unintended effects. First, the final period exemption, which allows exemption to continue after a person has moved somewhere else, will be reduced from 18 months to 9 months. The final 36 months of ownership remain exempt where a disabled owner is living in a care home. Second, letting relief, which can exempt up to an additional £40,000 of gain where a property has been let during the period of ownership, will be restricted to periods during which an owner was in shared occupancy with a tenant. At present, this relief is very favourable for someone who moves and lets out the former main residence. The Government will consult on both these measures.

Entrepreneurs’ Relief (ER)

ER reduces the tax on disposals of qualifying assets to 10%. The Chancellor commented that he has noted recommendations that he should abolish it. However, he considers it an important incentive to encourage economic growth. To prevent misuse of the relief, the definition of a personal company will change, for disposals on or after 29 October 2018, to require the claimant to have a 5% interest in both the distributable profits and the net assets of the company.

The minimum period for which the various conditions must be met will be increased from one year to two years for disposals on or after 6 April 2019. Where the business ceased before 29 October 2018 but the disposal falls on or after 6 April 2019, the one-year qualifying ownership period will still apply.

ER has, in the past, been lost where an individuals shareholding in a company was diluted below the 5% qualifying level by a new share issue. New rules will allow ER to apply to gains accruing up to the time of the share issue, where the new shares are issued on or after 6 April 2019.

Non-resident charges

Non-UK residents used to pay no tax on gains on UK property. This was changed for gains arising on residential property situated in the UK with effect from 6 April 2015. As announced a year ago, the scope of tax on gains will be extended to non-residential UK property with effect from 1 April 2019 (companies) or 6 April 2019 (individuals and trusts). Only the gain accruing after that date will be charged.

Foreign companies will become liable to Corporation Tax rather than CGT on such gains. Foreign companies will also be brought within the scope of Corporation Tax (rather than Income Tax) in respect of rental income from UK property from April 2020.

Payment of tax on residential property

At present, foreign residents disposing of UK residential property are required to pay CGT within 30 days of completion of the sale unless already within Self Assessment. The rules are being revised for non-residents making disposals on or after 6 April 2019, in particular recognising the need to allow reasonable estimates of valuations and apportionments in calculating the tax where accurate figures are not available within the very tight deadline.

From 6 April 2020, all CGT due on UK residences will become payable within 30 days of completion, whether the disposer is UK or foreign resident and whether or not they are already within Self Assessment. This payment on account of CGT will only apply if a chargeable gain arises, so it will not affect the sale of an exempt main residence. However, it will affect the tax payable on the sale of a buy-to-let or furnished holiday letting property, and it will significantly advance the payment of the tax. For example, the CGT on a sale exchanged and completed on 6 April 2019 will be due on 31 January 2021; the tax due on a sale completed on 6 April 2020 will be payable on 6 May 2020.

ISA limits

The ISA investment limits for 2019/20 remain £20,000 for a standard ISA and £4,000 for a Lifetime ISA. The limit for Junior ISAs and Child Trust Funds rises from £4,260 to £4,368. The Government will consult on regulations to deal with what happens when the very first Child Trust Funds mature in the near future.

Pension contributions (Table B)

There has been some speculation that the Chancellor would take steps to reduce pension tax relief, which he himself recently described as eyewateringly expensive. In the event, he did not mention the subject in his speech, and no changes were hidden in the documents “ apart from the second annual inflation-linked increase in the Lifetime Allowance (LA).

The LA is the maximum amount that a person can save in tax-advantaged pension schemes. The value of benefits is measured against the LA when benefits are first taken from a pension, and also on some other occasions, including the individuals 75th birthday. The LA will increase in line with inflation from £1.03 million to £1.055 million from 6 April 2019.

The limit on contributions to tax-advantaged pension schemes remains £40,000 per year for those with income up to £150,000 (£110,000 if the pension contribution is paid directly into the scheme by an employer). The limit is tapered away as income increases above £150,000, until it is only £10,000 when income reaches £210,000. The limit is also reduced to £4,000 for anyone who has drawn more than the tax-free lump sum from an existing money-purchase pension fund.