4th August 2016
Lifecycle offers members a wide range of benefits, including a regular programme of regional seminars, technical mailers and webinars – all designed to equip you with skills and knowledge that will further enhance your service offering and qualifying for CPD.
The next regional breakfast seminars begin in September and will focus on Tax Avoidance Schemes.
We’re now one year on from the settlement opportunity deadline and, whilst the issues surrounding marketed tax-avoidance schemes remain prominent, only 25% of those employers eligible to settle did so. So there are still options and advice that you can offer many of your clients to help them retain the most beneficial terms with HMRC.
Supporting your services with free seminars
To ensure that you’re equipped with the knowledge and insight to advise your clients most effectively on tax avoidance schemes, Lifecycle is running a series of seminars for member accountants across the UK this autumn.
Free for members – and qualifying for 1.5 hours CPD – the network’s training sessions for accountants will cover a whole host of tax schemes and associated topics and share advice and best practice that member accountants can pass on to their clients.
These include lessons to be learnt from the settlement opportunity, the HMRC’s current activity and future plans, measures introduced to combat disguised remuneration, Follower Notices and Accelerated Payment Notices and an overview to recent tax cases from a legal perspective.
Lifecycle experts will also discuss alternative steps and guidance on the time to pay arrangements and the impact recent taxation changes will have in terms of corporate restructuring and running a business.
Training that takes a look into the future
Lifecycle’s tax avoidance scheme seminars will also take a look at the future, including the legislative steps being taken to allow HMRC to recover taxes.
This includes HMRC’s revised guidance in the form of General Anti Abuse Rule (GAAR) on Disguised Remuneration, which makes it very clear that they will take all necessary steps to penalise those companies who failed to settle before last July’s deadline. And with 75% of those who should have settled their tax schemes failing to do so, there remains – one year on – thousands of contentious cases that are in various states of investigation or litigation. All of which will require expert accountancy advice to achieve the most beneficial outcome.
Taking further steps to enforce settlement, in this year’s Budget the then Chancellor laid out detailed plans to shut down certain schemes with £2.5billion forecast to be repaid by participants old and new by 2020/21. Giving greater powers to HMRC, he went on to say that “all loans or debts from a disguised remuneration scheme will be taxed as earnings if they haven’t already been fully taxed or repaid on or before 5th April 2019.”
There is still much guidance to give clients on settlements. Register here for a seminar and find out how you can enhance your service offering.
They will take place in North London, Essex, Bristol, Preston, Liverpool, Cheadle, Manchester, Birmingham, Sheffield and Leeds.
About the Lifecycle network
Lifecycle is a unique network for accountants – provided by the Leonard Curtis Business Solutions Group.
It provides member accountants with a comprehensive range of specialist services – and the expert support required – to improve your client offering at every stage of a business’ lifecycle. From company formation to cessation and all stages in between.
Lifecycle is free to join and also offers members many additional benefits. These include eligibility for a highly competitive Professional Indemnity insurance scheme, a regular programme of free training and education and discounts on products and services relevant to their business and clients’ needs.
Services offered by Lifecycle include: Company secretarial and formation; equity finance for SMEs; debt advisory for SMEs; personal debt advice; corporate restructuring, insolvency and cessation; debt finance for SMEs; cashflow maximisation; property solutions and legal services.
For further information, please visit https://lclifecycle.co.uk and to become a member click here or call for free on 03300 242 333.