In a variety of ways, he has cut the staffing costs of employers as well as making it easier for potential employees to move home or organise childcare says Charles Linaker, a Partner in dental accounting specialists UNW LLP.
Following the Chancellor’s Budget announcements before a rowdy House of Commons, Charles listed some of the key benefits for practice-owners and their teams:
• A new “Employment Allowance” which will result in a saving in Employers NIC upto £2,000.
• Help with the purchase of new-build homes for those trying to get on the property ladder. So long as the property is worth less than £600k and the purchaser can find 5% for the deposit, the Government will provide an interest free loan of 20%.
• An uplift from £5k to £10k in employer loans that can be made without giving rise to a taxable benefit on the employee – helpful for season rail tickets or other transport (or indeed new-build house purchase?) – will come into effect from 6 April 2014.
• Childcare discount of 20% up to a value of £1,200.
The tax free Personal Allowance will be increased to £10,000 from 6 April 2014, a year earlier than planned (and coming on top of the increase from £8,105 to £9,440 already announced from 6 April 2013). This could help team members working part-time or starting work half way through the tax year.
Also from April 2015 there will be a single rate of Corporation Tax of only 20 per cent for all companies of whatever size and irrespective of whether more than one is under common control. This is a genuine tax simplification measure which will benefit all incorporated dental practices and particularly those practitioners who may currently own and operate more than one limited company.
It may also encourage yet more practices to go down the incorporation route.
A final non Budget announcement, which will be of help to those practices concerned about their readiness to operate the new Real Time Information (“RTI”) process for payroll taxes from next month, is that HMRC have agreed to postpone the implementation of RTI for businesses with fewer than 50 employees until October of this year.
