We wish all our clients and intermediaries a wonderful Christmas and Happy New Year. Thank you for being part of our journey this year, and we look forward to continuing to work together in 2026.
Please note we are taking a well-earned rest for the festive period, finishing Tuesday, 23 December 2025 and not re-opening until Friday, 2 January 2026. Our office and telephone lines will be closed during this period and emails will be responded to in the New Year.
As the festive season approaches, we want to share a meaningful way we're celebrating this year. In lieu of sending Christmas cards, we have donated to Marie Curie Trust. Details on the charity can be found HERE.
Before the Christmas break, the Harbour Key team is working diligently to finalise client accounts that must be filed by 31 December (effectively 23 December) and those requiring to make Corporation Tax payments. Once the 31 December deadline is behind us, our focus after the Christmas break will shift to preparing for the 31 January self-assessment filing deadline. Each year, meeting this filing deadline becomes increasingly challenging as UK tax regulations grow more complex, making tax reporting more demanding. Preparing tax returns for the clients we support often involves extra effort to determine what needs to be reported and how best to report to HMRC.
AUTUMN BUDGET 2025
The big news over the last month in the world of tax and business since our last newsletter, was the Budget. Still being debated on various levels, even a couple of weeks after the speech.
From Harbour Key’s view, after four months of lots of noise, rumours, leaks of what was going to happen, not that much now, but wait till later – what happened to changes to the gifting rules for inheritance tax, wealth tax, and exit tax! A lot has been made of the Office of Budget Responsibility putting their Budget Report on their website in advance of the Chancellor’s speech, however we found after the Budget the information was not so forthcoming. For us, we wait for the speech to end and then go straight The Treasury and HMRC website to get the detail, and the more techie items that would not be covered in the speech. This year a lot of this material was released late, and there were some items not covered in our Budget update. One is the increase in late filing penalties for corporation tax returns (the current regime being in existence since 1998):
- Late £200
- > 3 months £400
- 3 x failures £1,000
- 3 x failures & 3 months late £2,000
We did predict an increase in dividend income tax rates, which takes effect April 2026!
OUR BUDGET SUMMARY AND UPDATE CAN BE FOUND HERE!
PLANNING & GROWING A RESILIENT BUSINESS
With the Christmas holidays approaching, for those who have the opportunity, it is a good time during the holiday season to step out of business and have look at your business. Take a step back, review how the business is working (review how you work in the business!), what are your goals/ambitions for 2026 and look at some common problems/issues that arise. One common area we discuss with our business clients on a regular basis is the resiliency of business owners and building a resilient business. We have put together a list of areas that we consider business owners should consider/review as part of a Christmas break exercise, see our blog below.
PLANNING & GROWING A RESILIENT BUSINESS
HMRC LETTERS A THING OF THE PAST!
In a bid to slash print and postage costs by £50m and drag HMRC communications into the 21st century, letters will no longer be sent out automatically to taxpayers from spring, with email alerts notifying them of new documents in their personal tax accounts or the HMRC app instead (you may have noticed increased advertising of the HMRC app). As part of HMRC’s ambitious digital by default programme, which envisages 90% of HMRC interactions with taxpayers being online or digital only by 2029-30 tax year, the Budget papers confirmed a major shift to digital by default had been signed off by the government, starting sooner than expected.
This means that the days of posted brown letters from HMRC are very much numbered with only the ‘digitally excluded’ or those who actively opt out of digital still able to receive old school posted letters, starting in spring 2026. If not done so, please set up a Government Gateway accountand download the HMRC app.
PROPERTY DATA EXCHANGE
HMRC will be able to share tax data with some overseas tax authorities on ownership of real estate under new OECD transparency rules. The Treasury has confirmed that the UK will sign up to the new data exchange process, joining a list of 25 countries agreeing to share information on property ownership. This will facilitate the automatic exchange of readily available information between tax authorities on property and real estate, helping to tackle offshore tax avoidance and evasion. This is the latest OECD measure to tackle the problem of tax transparency and is officially called the Multilateral Competent Authority Agreement on Automatic Exchange of Readily Available Information on Immovable Property (IPI MCAA).
Another set of information that HMRC will be able to access and use to stop tax evasion. The next of this type of arrangement is likely to be crypto.
COMPANIES HOUSE - MANATORY IDENTITY VERIFICATION FOR DIRECTORS AND PERSONS WITH SIGNIFICANT CONTROL (PSC's).
If you have not completed the Companies House ID verifications, then please do at the earliest opportunity and provide us with your code. If the verification is not completed you will be fined, and you will not be able file documents eventually resulting in the Company being struck off. Please click HERE for how important and what you need to do.
DATES
- Key Tax dates for the 2026 calender year.
- 31 January 2026 - Self Assessment deadline!
Should you wish to speak with us about a specific matter, or just to be a sounding board or for a chat, please do not hesitate to give us a call on 01452 713277.
