Recent developments

A selection of recent developments and special work

Efficient striking-off

Applying to Companies House to have a company struck-off the register is a cheap way of removing a company that is redundant. Unfortunately, it cannot be used if the company has a share capital of more than £1,000. We have obtained confirmation from HMRC that they will not apply anti-avoidance legislation to a reduction of share capital to facilitate a striking-off.

April 2010

CIS and time to pay

Businesses in the construction industry must make their tax payments on time if they want gross payments status. The government announced that a business that kept to a formal time-to-pay agreement would be treated as paying tax on time. The HMRC computer does not seem to know this. We are conducting an appeal against the threat to withdraw gross payment status.

April 2010

Online VAT

HMRC rolled out their new online VAT system on 23 November in preparation for compulsory online filing from 1 April 2010. We registered as an online filing agent straightaway and have filed returns online.

November 2009

Capital reduction

The management team had bought a company. Although they had turned it around and it was now profitable, it could not pay dividends because of accumulated losses. We used the facility in the new Companies Act to eliminate the accumulated losses by reducing the share capital. The company will now be able to pay dividends from future profits

October 2009