Accountants in Higher Ardwick

The best salary-dividend mix moves with each year's thresholds and your other income. Setting it once in April — rather than guessing through the year — is one of the simplest pieces of planning a director can do.

MTD for Income Tax starts with the £50,000+ income group in April 2026, with lower bands following. Quarterly digital updates sound worse than they are — with software doing the bookkeeping, the quarters largely take care of themselves.

First-year traders around Higher Ardwick tend to make the same three mistakes: registering late, mixing business and personal spending in one account, and saving nothing for the first tax bill. All three are avoidable in an afternoon of setup.

The capital gains annual exempt amount has shrunk to £3,000, which pulls far more ordinary disposals — shares, crypto, second properties — into reporting territory. Gains that once fell under the allowance now need a return, even when the tax due is modest.

Inside-IR35 and outside-IR35 engagements need different setups — sometimes umbrella, sometimes the company, sometimes both across a year. Contractors who plan this per-engagement keep more and worry less.

The July payment on account is the forgotten deadline: no return is due, but money often is. We diary it for every client it applies to, because HMRC charges interest from the day it's late even though nothing was "filed" late.

Crypto traders rack up hundreds of taxable events without noticing, because every swap counts as a disposal. Specialist software plus the pooling rules turns the mess into a number; guessing does not.

The £90,000 VAT threshold is measured over any 12-month rolling window, so a strong few months can tip you over mid-year. There's a 30-day window to register once you cross it; miss that and HMRC can backdate the liability to when you should have registered.