HMRC have recently announced the postponement of the VAT Reverse Charge within the Construction Industry. This is good news for the Construction industry who have been voicing their concerns that they would not be ready to implement the changes by the 1st October 2019.

Please be aware this is simply a delay and the reverse charge will commence on 1st October 2020.

Businesses should use the next 12 months to speak to their advisers and ensure their accounting systems are ready for the new implementation date.

In the event that you have already changed your systems and invoices in anticipation of this change going live on 1st October 2019, you should take steps to change back at your earliest opportunity.

If you have any queries on this please do not hesitate to speak to your usual Drummond Laurie contact.

All contractors will be aware of the IR35 legislation in some way or another.  The IR35 legislation requires an assessment as to whether work done by a contractor through their own limited company, or Personal Service Company (PSC) as it’s often referred to, falls within or out with the IR35 legislation.

Using well established criteria, such as Right of Substitution, Supervision, Direction and Control, Mutuality of Obligation and Business Risk, the legislation is designed to determine whether the contractor is effectively employed, or self-employed, for tax purposes.

Currently, this decision is made by the contractor.  The risk, and subsequent liability of getting this decision wrong, also lies with the contractor.  In 2017 changes were introduced to the public sector and these changes are now being rolled into the private sector in April 2020.

What is changing?

1. It is important to note here that the rules themselves are not changing, however, the responsibility for determining the contractor’s IR35 status, whilst in a particular assignment, will shift from your own PSC (i.e. the contractor), to the end client. The liability for getting this decision wrong, lies with the ‘Fee Payer’.  The ‘Fee Payer’ is the entity who pays the PSC, so this may be the end user, or more commonly, an agency.
2. If the end-client determines you to be within IR35 (or caught by IR35 legislation), any payments made to the PSC (or contractor), must be subject to a deduction of tax and national insurance as if that contractor were an employee.
3. With responsibility for determining your IR35 status lying with the end-client from April 2020, the government has developed an on-line employment  status assessment tool to assist end-clients with this exercise. The tool is known as CEST, and can be accessed online at HMRC.
4. If it transpires that, in making a status assessment, the end-client makes an error, responsibility for any underpaid tax and national insurance which arises as a result will lie with the end-client, or more commonly, with the agency (whoever is deemed to be the ‘Fee Payer’). It is worth a note that if the agency defaults on their responsibilities here, the liability will ultimately fall to the end-client company.

What to do next

Start entering into dialogues with your current end-user company now, especially where you are involved in an assignment which is likely to run over April 2020.

As end-client companies will potentially be held liable for any underpaid tax and national insurance, we anticipate that they will take their new responsibilities in this area very seriously and will be open to discussions with their contractors.

Each individual case will be different, so it is important to also consult with your accountant to discuss your specific circumstances.   Please get in touch, if we can help, email adviser@drummondlaurie.co.uk.

It is important to note that the proposed legislative changes have not yet been finalised, and are unlikely to be until later this year.  However, we do not anticipate significant changes to the proposals. 

We should all be aware that new Capital Gains Tax [CGT] reporting procedures come into force from 6^th April 2020.  These procedures will affect those disposing of second homes or rental properties, i.e. residential properties which are not your main principal residence.

The person disposing of the property will be required to submit a “payment on account return” within 30 days of completion of the sale notifying HMRC of the gain.  They will also be required to make a payment on account of the CGT within the same timescale.  Therefore, when selling a relevant property for a gain on the 7^th April 2020, this would previously require to have been included on a personal tax return due to be submitted by 31^st January 2022 with the tax payable by the same date.  Under the new rules, a payment on account return must be submitted by 6^th May 2020 with the tax payable on the same date.  People selling relevant properties are advised to contact their tax advisers in advance of the transaction completing in order to establish the tax payable and to make arrangements to submit the return and the payment within the required timescales.

At Drummond Laurie we try to keep our clients informed so that they can plan ahead and have no surprises!  For more information please contact us via email adviser@drummondlaurie.co.uk or call us on 01324 441250.

We were delighted to be able to sponsor the Youths 200m at the 163rd Alva Highland Games for the second successive year earlier this month.  The games took place at Johnstone Park in Alva in glorious sunshine and in front of a crowd of over 3,000 spectators. The race was won by Caleb McLeod from Pitreavie and the prizes were presented on behalf of Drummond Laurie by William Main.

The games were the first in a series which were part of the annual “week away” taking in such locations as Rosneath, Burntisland, Inveraray and Mull. One of our team, Andrew Gibson, took part in races at each of these highland games with the aim of winning some hard earned prize money. It was a successful week for him ending with a win in the Open Mile at Mull Highland Games retaining his title from 2018.

Grandparents and other family members under state pension age who look after children under 12 while their parents are at work may be able claim valuable tax credits. These are known as “specified adult childcare credits” and they count as a national insurance credit for those who don’t otherwise work. The reason this is important, is because you need at least 10 years’ worth of credits to qualify for the state pension, and at least 35 years’ to get the full £8,767.20 a year. Missing out on just a year’s credit could mean that you are losing out on £250 and over a typical 20 year retirement, this could amount to around £5,000.

YOU can apply for specified adult childcare credits if :

• You are a grandparent, or other family member caring for a child under 12
• You were over 16, and under state pension age when you cared for the child
• You live in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, but not the Channel Islands or the Isle of Man
• The child’s parent (or main carer) is entitled to child benefit and has a qualifying year for national insurance without needing the parent’s class 3 national insurance credits which they receive automatically from child benefit – they can check their national insurance record online to see if they have any gaps in contributions
• The child’s parent (or main carer) agrees to your application by countersigning the form to confirm that you cared for their child for the period stated and you can have their class 3 national insurance credit for the period stated

Please contact Lucy Murray at lucy.murray@drummondlaurie.co.uk if you would like to know more about this.

The sun was shining on Saturday for Doune & Dunblane’s 72^nd Agricultural Show.

Among the attendees was our very own Margaret Bunyan and her son Owen, who enjoyed a great family day out and catching up with a number of friendly faces.

Drummond Laurie were proud to be one of the show sponsors again this year and help support the local farming community.

Congratulations to all our clients who took part in the show and to the winners too!

An internship at Drummond Laurie CA is a very rare and unique opportunity for those considering a career in accountancy to experience first-hand what life is like as a trainee accountant.

Over the course of the internship successful candidates will gain real practical experience within a highly skilled team consisting of a mix of qualified and non-qualified individuals who together boast a breadth of knowledge and experience.

It allows people to sample our culture and working environment to decide for yourself whether it is right for you upon completing your studies and many of our previous interns have gone on to have extremely successful careers with us after completion of their internship.

This year we are absolutely delighted to have two interns join us over the summer.

Fiona Mulder is about to start her 4th year at the University of Strathclyde studying Accounting and Business Law.  Fiona hopes to gain some real hands on experience over the summer enabling her to return to her final year at university with a clearer idea of what the future may shape up to be!

Craig Martin is 24 years old and is a 3^rd year student at the University of Stirling.  He is working towards completing an Honours degree in Accountancy and Finance and hopes to learn a lot from this experience and gain an insight as to what it is like to work in accountancy practice.  Outside of work, he has a passion for football and travelling.

We often have opportunities for experienced and qualified people, please check out our careers page CLICK HERE

Last weekend was one of Scotland’s most iconic agricultural events, The Royal Highland Show. The 179^th Show had a record attendance estimated to be 195,400 and is thought to have generated £65m in economic benefit for Scotland.

Among the visitors to the show were a number of the Drummond Laurie team, who enjoyed celebrating the best in farming, food and rural life.

Drummond Laurie would like to congratulate all the winners and in particular their clients.

Here’s hoping the good weather experienced by the Highland Show will continue for the rest of the 2019 agricultural show season!

We have an in depth knowledge at Drummond Laurie of the agricultural sector and are continually working with clients to provide specialist taxation, accountancy and business advice.    If you would like to discuss any agricultural related accountancy or taxation matter, please get in touch.

HMRC have recently announced the introduction of a VAT Reverse Charge with regards to the Construction Industry. Whilst this term is new territory for the construction industry, this VAT treatment is already resident within other industries such as mobile phone and electricity.

Three important questions at the tip of our tongue:

• Who does this apply to? This only applies to supplies of building and construction services where your customer is registered for both VAT and CIS and these supplies are either standard rated or reduced rated.
• When does this apply? These new VAT rules are due to come into force in October 2019.
• Why?! HMRC believe that the introduction of these new VAT rules will significantly reduce the impact and existence of “missing trader fraud”. In short, this is the process of events whereby a supply chain is set up, with various intermediaries, and VAT is collected with no intent to pass this over to HMRC. The VAT Reverse charge is intended to prevent this by ensuring that VAT is paid over and reclaimed at the same point, ensuring HMRC do not lose out.

Two initial essential parts to this: establishing if your customer is the end user of your services and establishing if your customer is VAT and CIS registered.

If your customer is both VAT and CIS registered, and they are not the end user of the services provided, VAT reverse charge scheme will apply. Once under this VAT arrangement, you will consequently omit charging VAT on your invoice. A tax shift mechanism will take place and effectively your customer will adopt the “collection of output tax” role. As a result, the customer will account for both output and input VAT on their VAT Return. On the other hand, where the customer of the supply of construction services has confirmed that they are instead the “end user” of these services, the VAT reverse charge will not apply and VAT will be charged in the usual way.

VAT Reversal Charge will likely always apply in situations where there is Business to Business supplies of construction services between VAT registered businesses and the customer’s activities then provide an ongoing supply of the same construction and building services to another user.

How does this work practically?

Establishing Customer – Supplying services in the realms of CIS requires you to establish the position of your customer. Your customer is required to confirm, in writing, that they are the end user of the construction services to trigger the treatment of VAT under the normal method. Penalties may be due where the VAT Reversal Charge is not implemented correctly, however, HMRC have confirmed that there will be a 6 month period, following implementation date, where errors will be looked at more lightly.

Administrative Changes – Where the VAT Reverse Charge applies, declaration must be made, in words, on your invoices that this VAT treatment has been applied. This may require adjustments to systems which generate the invoices.

Cash Flow Considerations – Under the VAT Reversal Charge, the supplier passes the responsibility of charging VAT to the customer. As a result, the supplier charges and receives only the net amount.

Suppliers must consider the cash flow impact of receiving only the net amount and losing out on the benefit of retaining the output VAT for the time period prior to paying this over to HMRC.

HMRC have provided initial guidance on this which can be found at www.gov.uk/government/publications/vat-reverse-charge

Further announcements and guidance are expected from HMRC over the coming months.

Please do not hesitate to contact your usual Drummond Laurie contact to discuss further.

We are just days away from one of the UK’s premier agricultural shows, the 2019 Royal Highland Show.

From Thursday 20^th June to Sunday 23^rd June the Royal Highland Centre at Ingliston, Edinburgh will open its doors to the 179^th Royal Highland Show and showcase the best in farming, food and rural life. There is something for everyone at the show.

Some of the team from Drummond Laurie will be going to the show and are counting down the days till they “meet, touch, smell, taste and take home the best in the country”.

We would like to wish all of clients who are competing at the show the best of luck.

More details about the show can be found at www.royalhighlandshow.org