Weekly News Round -UP

Pensioners overtaxed £400m

HMRC figures show that pensioners have been overtaxed by more than £400m since pension freedom rules came into effect in 2015. Since the launch, the Revenue has refunded £402,743,108 in overpaid tax from pension savings, with 174,260 people having to make claims. Which? said the issue is linked to the way withdrawn money is taxed, saying it is taxed on an emergency rate as it is collected by pension companies, which are unaware of the saver’s correct tax code and other income. The tax is thereby based on a Month 1 basis, under the assumption the lump being taken out will be repeated every month.

Source: Daily Express (24/04/2019)

 

Small firms hit out at unfair tax system

A British Chambers of Commerce (BCC) survey of 1,000 firms, many of them SMEs, has seen almost 60% say that the tax regime is unfair on businesses like their own. The poll saw 67% of respondents say the taxman does not apply rules fairly across all sizes of business, with 70% of small firms believing this is the case compared to 58% of medium and larger businesses. It was also shown that 49% of firms do not feel HMRC provides the support they need to be compliant. Suren Thiru, head of economics at the BCC, said: “When it comes to compliance there is a tendency for HMRC to see smaller businesses as low hanging fruit and as a consequence they feel under the constant threat of being called out for getting things wrong in a tax system that has grown ever more complex.”

Source: The Times (23/04/2019)  

SMEs urged to make the most of Brexit delay

Consultant Ready For Brexit says 80% of small businesses were not prepared for Brexit, saying they would have been at risk of disruption if the UK had exited the EU on March 29. Ready for Brexit chairman Paul Hodges has urged SMEs to utilise the delay, saying: “They can’t waste the extension and can’t afford to be complacent, as no deal remains the default position and businesses need to know how Brexit will affect them.”

Source: Sunday Express (21/04/2019)

 

Brits take most new jobs since Brexit vote

Government figures show that British workers have filled nearly all of the new jobs created in the UK since the Brexit vote. Employment Minister Alok Sharma said the number of EU nationals joining the workforce since the 2016 referendum had fallen to fewer than 35,000, compared to the 410,000 EU citizens who joined the workforce in the two years before the vote. This means that while in the two years ahead of the referendum EU nationals accounted for over 45% of the UK’s growth in employment, since the vote the proportion has slipped to around 5%. Mr Sharma says that since the Brexit vote over 1m more people are in work in the UK, commenting: “Employers are clearly already adjusting to lower immigration from the EU.”

Source: The Daily Telegraph (22/04/2019)

 

Mid-sized firms boost jobs and growth

New analysis shows that medium-sized businesses have created more jobs in the past year than the largest or smallest. The report reveals that mid-sized firms have created 500,000 new jobs in the past 12 months, marking an 8% year-on-year increase and exceeding the 100,000 jobs created by small firms. Turnover at medium-sized firms has risen by an average of 11% in a year, compared to 9% at large firms and 7% at small ones.

Source: The I (22/04/2019)

 

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