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If doing the accounts is far from your favourite activity get our friendly team of experts on the case.

Get practical advice on growing your business, whether you’re just starting or well-established.

26/02/2026

‘Making Tax Digital or Making Tax Difficult?

You have probably heard by now HMRC’s new initiative, Making Tax Digital (MTD) for Income Tax. If not, this means if your sole trade income, rental property income or a combination of both exceeded £50,000 for the 2024/25 tax year you will need to process your bookkeeping on an MTD compliant software and report income and costs to HMRC quarterly. The standard annual self assessment tax return will still remain.

If this is a concern for you, please reach out to Cook & Partners to see how we can assist you with this and take any headaches away from you.

25/02/2026

The end of the tax year is in sight. 5th April 2026.

Now is a great time to consider any tax mitigation strategies.

If you are looking to pay into a SIPP, this contribution needs to be paid to the pension provider before 5th April 2026.

Please speak to us, so we can forecast your income levels to 5th April 2026 and advise on the tax planning strategies that can be used and the tax savings that can be had.

04/02/2026

You may be weighing up whether to purchase a property through a company or in your personal name. There’s no right or wrong answer, it depends on your long term goals and needs for the rental income.

You need to also consider if you are going to hold onto the property long term and potentially grow a property portfolio.

If you look to extract the rental income and potentially sell the property in the near future you must bear in mind with a company there will be double taxation.

As with all these type of decisions speak to Cook & Partners first so we can provide you with a detailed summary of the implications of purchasing a property in a company or in your personal name.

04/11/2025

Did you know that you can spread your self assessment income tax liability over the next tax year – as long as you tick the HMRC boxes.
• It is only available if your tax liability is less than £3,000 for that tax year.
• You must pay your income tax through PAYE, either as an employee or through a company pension.
• You must file your tax return by 30th December if filing electronically.
This doesn’t mean that you pay less tax, but it does spread the payment, so your bank account doesn’t get a big shock to its system right after the Christmas credit card bills are paid!
It works because you pay tax via PAYE according to the tax code that HMRC issues. If you’re spreading the liability, they’ll issue a new tax code, so each month a proportion of the amount owed is taken. So, instead of a big lump on 31st January, you pay an amount each month.

There are some criteria to meet.
• You can’t apply for this if the resulting monthly tax deduction is more than double your current tax deduction.
• If you work part-time, you can’t apply for this if the tax deduction totals more than half your pay.
• You will need to tick the option to do this on your online tax return.

03/11/2025

Escaped from the dungeons last week, escape room this week!

Great day out with the team at Cook & Partners.

27/10/2025

Cook & Partners were proud to be part of the Hertford castle jail break on Friday. It was great to support such a fantastic local institution like the Hertford museum.

10/10/2025

Looking at selling a buy to let property? Did you know you have 60 days from the date of completion to declare any gain to HMRC and pay the CGT?

Prior to 6th April 2020 when you sold a buy to let property you would simply declare this on a self assessment tax return for the tax year the property was sold and pay any CGT by 31st January following the end of that tax year.

Since then, you need to report the gain and pay the CGT to HMRC within 60 days of the completion date.

You will still need to report the gain on your self assessment tax return with either no additional CGT payable or maybe a small balance payable or refundable depending on your other income levels in the tax year.

HMRC can levy penalties of £100 for late filing even if no CGT is due. There will also be interest accrued on the CGT from the date the tax was due to be paid until actual payment is made.

HMRC have access to land registry records and so can often send prompt letters when there is a change in ownership asking if there is any CGT to report.

24/09/2025

Profit principles to help improve your business

1. Perform a review of your customers, who are your top customers and who are the customers who you make no profit on. Look to increase prices on the non profitable and if they leave use the resources freed up to work on the top customers
2. How can you retain and attract more of the top type of customer
3. Look at rewarding yourself with short term profit performance bonuses. Review quarterly and any increase above baseline pay yourself a dividend bonus
4. Can efficiencies or increased output be obtained from your employees with incentives
5. Optimise tax efficiency by claiming available tax reliefs, i.e electric cars, capital allowances, use of home as office provision, spouse salary and pensions
6. Create a sufficient cash flow to pay suppliers and tax on time. Build a pot of excess funds for a rainy day, investment or to reward employees and you as the business owner
7. Measure and monitor performance, by looking at monthly or quarterly management accounts. Compare turnover to budget, gross profit margin to budget, overheads to budget

Are you maximising profit extraction options

Do you have a spouse who earns no income or minimal income. If they perform work for the company, you can look at paying them a salary which needs to be at least national living wage. This makes use of their personal allowance and basic rate band and saves the company corporation tax. It also means funds going into the family pot at lower tax rates than if the business owner paid themselves as a salary or dividend

Do you have alphabet shares in place? This allows flexible dividend payments between shareholders and with a husband and wife can help to ensure maximum profits are taken whilst keeping both spouses at basic rate tax payers or ensuring the business owner does not go over the £100k income level and start losing their personal allowance

If you personally pay for costs for the business are you making a claim for these? This results in a corporation tax saving for the company and also a reimbursement to the business owner by the company which is tax free income for the business owner

02/06/2025

Has your tax liability made you wince?

Why not request for the liability to be taken to your tax code, this means it can be settled over a number of months as opposed to falling due in once payment.

There is no interest charged by HMRC if the liability is tax coded and the return needs to be submitted by 30th December 2024 if filing online.

The criteria to be able to take the liability to your tax code is as below;

- Liability needs to be below £3,000
- Need to be under PAYE, so employee or pension income
- The tax liability cannot be more than 50% of their income through PAYE

29/05/2025

Do you know what your accounting software can do for you?

Did you know your accounting software can help chase outstanding balances from customers, its like having your own in house finance department. You can set a reminder on each sales invoice you raise so that once the due date passes an email is automatically sent to the email contact for that customer requesting payment. This can have a huge time saving advantage for owner managed businesses as well as increasing cash flow by customers paying balances earlier.

Most accounting software will allow you to input sales invoices and purchase invoices on a project basis, this means you can run a profit and loss account by project which will help you view the projects which are profitable and those which may be loss making.

You can run a profit and loss account each month so you can see on a cumulative basis from the start of your accounting period what your turnover level is, gross profit margin and profit before tax. This information can allow you to see how the company is performing compared to budget, last years results and allow you to budget for any potential staff bonuses, pay rises and of course the corporation tax liability.

26/05/2025

Do you have a will in place? If the worst were to happen and you had no will in place you would be termed as having died intestate. In these circumstances the individuals you would wish to leave part of your estate to may not receive what you wish for them. If you have a partner but you are not married they will not qualify to automatically receive any of your estate. This can leave those who you love in a vulnerable position once you have gone. It is also important to ensure any will you do have in place is a valid will. You will need to check the will is in writing, has been signed and dated by yourself and has been witnessed by 2 witnesses who are not beneficiaries. Any change in marital status will require your will to be updated for this.

23/05/2025

Shares to employees. Many companies who wish to attract and retain key staff members with an eye also on succession planning may consider issuing shares to their employees. There are many tax implications to consider here for the issuer of the shares but also for the employees receiving the shares. If shares were to be gifted to an employee as an example as the employee received these for less than market value they will incur a tax charge and national insurance charge on the difference between the value of the shares at issue and what was paid. There are a number of steps that need to be taken and considerations considered to ensure this great incentivising option does not incur unknown tax charges.

Address

Manufactory House, Bell Lane
Hertford
SG141BP

Telephone

+441992554444

Website

https://www.cookpartners.co.uk/

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