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An unwelcome April Fool’s for business tax changes

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An unwelcome April Fool’s for business tax changes

April brings key tax and filing changes for businesses

The start of April has introduced a number of significant changes for businesses. These include reduced capital allowances, increased penalties for late filing of corporation tax returns, and the closure of HMRC’s free corporation tax return filing portal.

Capital allowances

Capital expenditure will often qualify for a 100% deduction. However, where expenditure does not qualify, an annual writing-down allowance (WDA) is applied.

Transfer Pricing

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Transfer Pricing

Practical, jargon-free transfer pricing advice from HURST. We help businesses manage compliance, reduce risk and support cross-border growth with confidence.

Can you beat the dividend tax rates rise?

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Can you beat the dividend tax rates rise?

From 6 April 2026, the basic and higher tax rates on dividend income are going to increase by two percentage points. This means owner-managers need to act as a matter of urgency if they wish to benefit from some fairly basic tax planning.

The basic and higher tax rates on dividend income are currently 8.75% and 33.75%, respectively, but these rates are going up to 10.75% and 35.75%. The dividend additional tax rate is not changing.

Tax charges to rise on loans to directors

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Tax charges to rise on loans to directors

The tax charge when a director, who is also a participator, has an outstanding loan with a close company is going up by two percentage points to 35.75% from 6 April 2026.

Very broadly, a participator is a shareholder in the company, and a close company is one controlled by five or fewer participators.

Overdrawn loan account

Nearly £50 billion missing in tax take

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Nearly £50 billion missing in tax take

The latest estimate of the tax gap shows that missing taxes are approaching £46.8 billion, with some 5.3% of total taxes going unpaid. 

These figures are for 2023/24. HMRC will be particularly concerned that small businesses account for 60% of the missing taxes. The tax gap for corporation tax has increased from 6.4% in 2011/12 to nearly 16%.

HURST’s Jennifer Escott Shortlisted for Insider North West Young Professionals Awards 2025

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HURST’s Jennifer Escott Shortlisted for Insider North West Young Professionals Awards 2025

We’re delighted to share that Jennifer Escott, a rising star in our tax team, has been shortlisted for the prestigious Insider North West Young Professionals Awards 2025!

Alpine Fire Engineers

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Meet Mark

Finance Director of Alpine Fire Engineers

We chatted to Mark Jones, Finance Director of Alpine Fire, about HURST’s role as an extension of their experienced in-house finance team.

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Finalising returns figures and filing early

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Finalising returns figures and filing early

HMRC is chasing taxpayers who have submitted tax returns for 2021/22 containing unresolved provisional figures, while also extolling the benefits of filing early for 2022/23.

Tax gap at all-time low

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Tax gap at all-time low

The tax gap is the difference between the amount of tax that should, in theory, be paid to HMRC, and what is actually paid. For 2021/22, the gap was at an all-time low of 4.8% (or £35.8 billion), although in monetary terms the gap increased by some £7 billion from 2020/21.

National insurance gap extension

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National insurance gap extension

The normal time limit for a person to fill gaps in their national insurance (NI) record is six years, but transitional arrangements allow gaps to be filled back to 2006/07. The deadline for making such contributions was recently extended to 31 July 2023, but has now been extended to 5 April 2025.

The deadline has been delayed because people have been finding it difficult to get through on pension helplines once the July deadline received a publicity boost. The transitional arrangement will now apply for the years 2006/07 to 2017/18.

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