HMRC paid Amazon £11 million for web hosting services in 2018, more than six times the £1.7 million than Amazon’s main UK business paid in corporation tax.
A new report from the GMB union reveals that Amazon received more than £460 million worth of public contracts in the last four years.
The Government offers a range of loans, services and tools to help small businesses grow and improve productivity.
If you have just set up a new business, or are looking at ways to expand, then Government support is often the best (and cheapest) way to realise your goals.
In this blog post, we look at some of the schemes that can help small businesses achieve specific targets.
Did you struggle filing your tax return last month? Xero’s acquisition of Instafile promises to make tax preparation much easier next time around.
Instafile, which is only available through Xero Partners like CloudAccountant.co.uk, automates tax filing and reporting by connecting small businesses directly with tax authorities like HMRC.
If you are self-employed, you can claim back expenses against your income to reduce your overall business profit and the amount of tax you pay.
For example, if you earn £40,000 through self-employment and claim back £5,000 in allowable expenses, your profit will be £35,000, so you will only pay tax on this.
Many of these allowable expenses are obvious. And if you have been self-employed for a few years you will know most of them. But there are certain less obvious expenses that you might not have claimed for.
For personal tax, the new tax year starts on April 6 2018 and brings with it a host of tax changes and new regulations.
Will you get a tax cut or end up paying more?
There will be some winners and some losers this year, but whatever your financial position, you need to know how the changes will affect you.
Here are the five changes that we think are most important for personal finances.
The Centre for Policy Studies has proposed a new simple consolidated tax (SCT) to replace the four main taxes currently paid by small and medium sized firms.
The radical proposal would see corporation tax, employer’s national insurance, VAT and business rates consolidated into one tax paid by firms turning over less than £1 million.
Small businesses are the heartbeat of Britain’s economy. Some 5.6 million small firms employ around 13 million people and generate three-quarters of all new jobs.
The Chancellor Philip Hammond has confirmed that he will push ahead with Making Tax Digital for VAT reforms in April, despite warnings that many firms are not ready for the change.
In the Chancellor’s written ministerial statement, he said that Making Tax Digital “is an important first step in this modernisation of the tax system to which the government remains committed.”
Christmas is a popular time for submitting Self-Assessments to HMRC ahead of the 31 January deadline.
Last year, 16,000 people submitted their tax return online between 24 and 26 December. This included more than 2,500 submissions on Christmas Day and almost 7,700 the day after on Boxing Day.
More than 17,000 people also submitted their Self-Assessments on the New Year’s Day bank holiday.
A majority of British businesses agree that the cost of complying with the UK tax system has increased in recent years, according to new evidence from the British Chambers of Commerce (BCC).
A BCC survey of 1,100 firms found that three-quarters of businesses believe that the overall burden of tax administration and compliance has increased compared to five years ago.
The Government has granted HMRC strong new powers to make sure that online sellers are paying the right level of tax.
The key changes force online marketplaces like Amazon and eBay to clampdown on online sellers that aren’t paying the right level of VAT.
First announced in the Chancellor’s Autumn Budget in 2017, the new rules took effect last week.
They are designed to create a fair playing field between businesses that abide by tax laws and UK and international companies that flout them.
Financial Secretary to the Treasury, Mel Stride, said: “Whilst the honest majority pay what they owe, some businesses that sell goods online to UK shoppers are failing to pay the correct amount of VAT.
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