Taxmo blog

UK tax updates, MTD changes, HMRC news and bookkeeping guidance for freelancers, sole traders and contractors.

• Payments on Account: Why January's Bill Is Bigger Than You Expected: Why your first January after a good year can ask for more than the tax you owe, how payments on account are calculated, and when you can reduce them.
• VAT Registration: When You Must, When You Might Want To: The rolling twelve-month test, the forward look nobody mentions, why zero-rated sales count, and when voluntary registration is worth it.
• Cash Basis or Accruals: Which Should a Sole Trader Use?: The practical difference between recognising income when paid and when invoiced, who can use cash basis, and the trap when you switch.
• Working From Home: What You Can Actually Claim: The flat rate, the apportionment method, and how to make a home-office claim defensible if HMRC ever asks.
• Late-Paying Clients: The Interest You Are Entitled To Charge: Statutory interest under the Late Payment of Commercial Debts (Interest) Act 1998, the fixed recovery sum, and how to actually use them.
• Capital Allowances: Why You Cannot Just Expense That Laptop: The difference between a running cost and a capital purchase, how the Annual Investment Allowance and Writing Down Allowance work, and where cars are different.
• Registering as Self-Employed: The Bits Nobody Tells You: When you actually have to register, the deadline that is not 31 January, and what happens between registering and getting your UTR.
• You Missed the Self Assessment Deadline. Now What?: What the penalties actually are, why filing late still beats not filing, and how Time to Pay works when the money is not there.
• Sole Trader or Limited Company: How to Actually Decide: Beyond the profit rule of thumb: admin, liability, client requirements, and the ongoing obligations people underestimate.
• How Long Do You Have to Keep Your Records?: Retention periods for sole traders and companies, what counts as a record, and why digital copies are fine.
• VAT Schemes: Flat Rate, Cash Accounting and Annual Accounting: What each scheme changes, who each one suits, and the limited cost business rule that makes Flat Rate a bad deal for many service businesses.
• Bank Reconciliation: What Good Actually Looks Like: Why matching your records to the bank catches things nothing else will, and the four discrepancies worth understanding.
• Why Your Tax Software Asks for More Than HMRC's Website Does: HMRC requires Making Tax Digital software to send a set of fraud prevention headers with every call. What they contain, why they exist, and what it means for you.
• Why Bank Feeds Stop Working, and What On-Demand Imports Fix: Open Banking consents expire by design. Why that quietly breaks bank feeds in accounting software, how to spot it, and the trade-off in an on-demand import instead.