Our latest client newsletter is available for download.
It covers simple assessments, electric vehicle excise duty, salary sacrifice pensions and more
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News
Winter Newsletter 2025
Autumn Budget 2025
Please find below our summary of the Autumn Budget delivered by the Chancellor, Rachel Reeves, on Wednesday 26 November.
Income tax and other main tax rates remain essentially unchanged and frozen for longer, but the taxation of dividends, savings income and property income will rise over the next few years.
Among the wide range of measures were:
Personal Allowance and Tax Thresholds:
• The personal allowance and the existing income-tax thresholds remain fixed at their current cash values for a further three years to 2030/31.
Tax on Dividends:
• Tax rates on dividends will increase by 2% from 2026/27, except for the additional rate on dividends which will stay at 39.35%
Tax on Savings Income:
• Savings income rates will increase by 2% in 2027/28.
Tax on Property Income:
• Property income rates will also increase by 2% in England and Northern Ireland in 2027/28, however due to the devolution of property income tax rates in Scotland, we await the Scottish government delivering their budget on 13 January 2026 to find out how this will affect Scottish taxpayers.
Electric Vehicle Excise Duty:
• A new usage-based Electric Vehicle Excise Duty (eVED) will be introduced from April 2028 establishing a charge per mile for electric cars. Average EV drivers are expected to pay around £240 a year initially and plug-in hybrid cars will attract a reduced rate.
Changes to Pensions via Salary Sacrifice:
• From 6 April 2029, the amount that an employee may contribute to a pension through salary sacrifice without paying national insurance contributions (NICs) will be capped at £2,000 a year.
Changes to ISA’s:
• The individual savings account (ISA) subscription limit remains £20,000. But from April 2027, savers under age 65 must invest at least £8,000 of the annual ISA allowance in qualifying investments such as shares and authorised funds, rather than in cash.
As ever the Budget publications contained a wide range of detailed proposals and much to digest. Our Budget summary highlights the key aspects likely to affect you. If you have any questions about what you should do next, please get in touch.
Download here
Autumn Newsletter 2025
Our latest client newsletter is available for download.
It covers Advisory fuel rates from 1st September 2025, MTD for Income Tax and more.
Download here
Summer Newsletter 2025
Our latest client newsletter is available for download.
It covers Mandatory Payroll of Benefits (delayed) MTD for Income Tax and more.
Download here
Spring Newsletter 2025
Our latest client newsletter is available for download.
It covers MTD for Income Tax, NIC Changes and more.
Download here
Autumn Budget 2024
Please find below our summary of the Autumn Budget delivered by the Chancellor, Rachel Reeves, on Wednesday 30 October.
In presenting Labour’s widely anticipated first Budget in 14 years, the Chancellor was faced with a challenging task. Following her announcement of a “black hole” in the public finances, the need to renew the Treasury’s coffers while maintaining Labour’s manifesto promises seemed a tall order.
In the event Ms Reeves outlined a programme of around £41 billion worth of tax increases over the next five years, alongside plans to rebuild tottering infrastructure, the health service, schools and more. Any idea of a return to austerity was quashed, but how this will be achieved is very much in the detail.
Among the key headline items were:
- The main rate of class 1 employer national insurance contribution (NIC) will be increased from 13.8% to 15 from 6 April 2025%
- The secondary threshold at which employer NICs are payable will be reduced from £9,100 to £5,000.
- Main rates of capital gains tax increases with immediate effect to 18% for non and basic rate taxpayers and 24% for higher and additional rate taxpayers.
- Inheritance tax (IHT) business and agricultural reliefs will be capped at a total of £1 million from April 2026.
- Unused pension funds and death benefits will be included as part of an individual’s estate for IHT purposes from April 2027.
- The additional SDLT charge for second homes and buy-to-let properties (in England and Northern Ireland) increases from £5 to 5% from 31 October 2024
- VAT of 20% will be applied to private school and boarding fees from 1 January 2025, while the charitable relief for English business rates will be withdrawn from 1 April 2025.
- ISAs, Junior ISAs and Lifetime ISA limits will remain frozen until April 2030.
- Fuel duty rates for 2025/26 will remain frozen and alcohol rates on certain draught beers will be cut.
Fundraising for Support in Mind Scotland
Maria our CA graduate apprentice has shaved her hair to raise funds for Support in Mind Scotland
We are happy to share the before and after photos.
If you wish to support her efforts click on the link below
September Charity Walk Update
The final total for our walk is a fantastic
£5,800
We can’t thank everyone enough for their efforts and the generosity of everyone who sponsored us to raise funds for Pancreatic Cancer UK & Cancer Research UK in memory of Hilary and Catherine.
Thank You.
Charity Walk 24 September 2021 £3500 raised to date
Thank you to all those who sponsored us on Friday. We had a good day with the weather, our support team and the good wishes of those who joined us and encouraged us on the way round. The trip took us just under 4 hours not including our welcome break at Burleigh Sands for coffee and cake, thanks to Connor, his mum, Kay & Nick and the staff who baked. We would also like to thank Imagin Products Ltd for our fabulous Tee Shirts.
Thanks again for your support
Charity Walk Coffee Break
Charity Walk Start
Office Charity Walk 24 September 2021
Thanks to great support from our clients, over the last few years the office and staff have raised around £10,000 for MacMillan Cancer Support by holding Coffee Mornings at Cupar and Markinch. The last one was held in September 2018.
Two wonderful people, with close connections to the office, have died since then from cancer and we have decided that we want to raise some money for Pancreatic Cancer UK and Cancer Research UK in their memory.
They were Hilary Green Marshall who died from pancreatic cancer on 4 July 2019.
As well as being a client, the office stationery supplier and a retained firefighter she was a brilliant friend. Her support was invaluable when I was setting up the office and she was the very first client to sign up with the new business. In recognition of this she was invited to every staff Christmas outing!
Catherine Juskowiak died from liver cancer on 20 May 2021.
She was closely connected to the office through her work for a client and a great supporter of us, again particularly in the early days of setting up the business. She was a lovely person and my best memory is discussing the funniest episodes of Frasier with her.
To raise money for Pancreatic Cancer UK and Cancer Research UK, we are doing a sponsored walk for the 13 miles round Loch Leven on Friday 24th September 2021. We are starting from the car park at Vane Farm at 9.30am and walking clockwise around the loch. There will be a tea, cake and water stop at Burleigh Sands car park.
We would love you to sponsor us and if possible join us for all or part of the walk (or cycle!).
Every penny donated will go to help fund research into this terrible disease.
If you have any queries please contact anyone at the office.
Pay a Virtual Visit to Our Markinch Office!
We're proud to be the first accountant in Fife to have the Google Streetview team photograph our business.
See below (or click here) to try it out and have a look around our Markinch office, and see if you can identify the people behind the calculators! (Streetview doesn't include faces for privacy reasons.)
If you'd like to see the office in person, just drop by, or give us a call - contact and location details are over here.