B.H. Accountancy Ltd

26/07/2026

24/07/2026

Today marked an important milestone for those clients of ours affected by the new Making Tax Digital for Income Tax reporting regime. The reason for this was that we have now successfully filed to HM Revenue & Customs the very first “live” MTD submission for Quarter 1 of the 2026/27 tax year on behalf of a client.

This was quickly followed by a second successful submission for another client, followed by a third one.

Whilst the submission process itself is very similar in each case, obtaining the correct data from clients in the first instance varies considerably as each affected client records their transactions in many different ways and a bespoke solution is needed for each and every one. There is no such thing as a “one size fits all” solution for this.

Anyone else affected should note they now have less than two weeks to meet the Q1 filing deadline. If you have yet to submit your data to us, we urge you to do so very soon!

23/07/2026

This is an official email from Companies House, sent to all registered email addresses. The information in this email is relevant to all companies registered in the UK.

Identity verification – check you’ve completed all the required steps

Nearly 5 million individuals have verified their identities, helping protect businesses and the public from fraud.

As we move through the 12-month transition period, we’re sharing information to help you avoid common issues that are delaying the process for some individuals.

Check your identity verification status

You can check the identity verification status of your directors and people with significant control (PSCs) on the Companies House register:

-Search for your company on the register.
- Select the People tab.
- Look for the identity verification status next to each director and PSC.
- If you’ve completed identity verification, you’ll see a green tick.

If you still need to take action, you’ll see your due from and due by dates.

Remember to check the status of your PSCs as well as your directors.

If you see a green tick for your director and PSC appointments, you do not need to do anything else.

If you’re also a person with significant control (PSC), there’s an extra step

One of the most common issues we’re seeing is directors assuming that providing their personal code as a director also covers their role as a PSC.

Approximately 20% of companies have a PSC who is overdue with their identity verification requirements. Our data shows that many of these individuals have already provided their personal code for their role as a director.

If you hold both roles, you’ll need to provide the same personal code twice:

- once for your role as a director – on your company’s confirmation statement
- separately for your role as a PSC – using the Provide identity verification details for a person with significant control service

05/07/2026

Open consultation - Requiring payment of VAT and PAYE — Direct Debit

Summary

Subject of this consultation

The government announced at Autumn Budget 2025 that it would consult on improving the timeliness of Pay As You Earn (PAYE) and Value Added Tax (VAT) payments through requiring payment of these liabilities by Direct Debit.

Scope of this consultation

The government is seeking views on plans to require businesses to pay their PAYE and VAT return liabilities by Direct Debit, with the aim of reducing late payment, limiting the flow of debt and simplifying the payment process to reduce error.

Your responses will help inform the scope of future changes and whether safeguards are needed as well as exceptions from paying by Direct Debit for certain taxpayers.

Who should read this

The government invites views from any individual, business or organisation who could be affected by changes to the way VAT and PAYE return liabilities are collected. The consultation will also be of interest to tax agents, representative bodies, software providers, charities and other voluntary organisations that help people with their tax affairs.

Duration

The consultation will run for 8 weeks from 23 June 2026 to 16 August 2026.

Lead official

The lead officials for this consultation are A.Hurst and A. Penny of HMRC.

How to respond or enquire about this consultation

You can respond to this consultation by 16 August 2026, by submitting this online form

https://forms.cloud.microsoft/pages/responsepage.aspx?id=PPdSrBr9mkqOekokjzE54R4_I1M8UIpNseA5-9cSPgdUMEIyWUJPMlZQMVQ3UVVUUklSVU81TDNBTy4u&route=shorturl

or by sending an email to

[email protected]

or posting responses to:

Anne Hurst
Liverpool Regional Centre
8A, India Buildings
31 Water Street
Liverpool
L2 0RD

Partial responses will be accepted.

HMRC will publish a summary of responses as soon as possible after the consultation period closes. Responses to the consultation will be used to inform the implementation of any future policy changes over required method of payment for PAYE and VAT returns.

19/06/2026

HMRC increases mileage rate to 55p: What it means for employers, employees and the self employed

It has been announced that workers who use their own vehicle for business purposes will have cheaper journeys after the Approved Mileage Allowance Payment was increased.
In the largest ever uprating (and the first change seen for 15 years) a 10p per mile increase in tax-free mileage rates for this tax year has been introduced and is backdated to 6 April 2026.

This means that the tax-free rate will increase from 45p to 55p per mile for the first 10,000 miles for business journeys. Up to two million employees and one million self-employed people are expected to benefit.

Here we summarise what this change means for employers, employees and those who are self-employed.

What does this mean for employers?

Employers who reimburse employees for business mileage will need to consider whether to pay the increased rate and ensure payroll and expenses systems are up to date.

As the changes are backdated (to 6 April 2026), employers may also need to consider when they introduce the changes to their expenses process and their treatment of employees who have already made their April/May expense claims.

The change means:

- Reimbursements made within the HMRC approved rate are free from tax and National Insurance contributions.
- It gives employers an opportunity to reassess and enhance employee benefits.
- It helps businesses keep mileage reimbursement policies fair, competitive, and aligned with current HMRC guidance.
- This makes it an appropriate time for employers to review existing mileage policies and confirm they remain compliant with HMRC rules.

What does this mean for employees?

An employee travelling 5,000 business miles annually could receive up to £500 more each year to cover their travel compared with the previous rate if their employer increases reimbursements to the new rate.

There is also increased tax relief against their business mileage costs – for example, a worker travelling 6,000 business miles this year would pay around £120 less in tax.

Employees who are reimbursed at less than 55p per mile — for example, 35p per mile — may be entitled to claim Mileage Allowance Relief (MAR) from HMRC. This allows tax relief to be claimed on the difference between the amount paid by the employer and the approved mileage rate.

For example, where an employer pays 35p per mile, leaving a 20p gap below the HMRC approved rate, the employee can claim tax relief on that 20p difference through HMRC’s Job Expenses process, helping to reduce the financial shortfall.

What does this mean for self-employed individuals?

The revised mileage rate may also provide meaningful savings for self-employed individuals and sole traders.

You can now:

- Claim 55p per mile as an allowable business expense
- Deduct this expense from business profits through your Self-Assessment tax return
- This reduces taxable profit and can lower your overall tax liability. For individuals who regularly drive for work purposes, the financial benefit over the course of a year could be considerable.

17/06/2026

Please see the important information below regarding our firm’s Fee Protection Insurance service which is approaching its next annual renewal date of 1st July 2026.

17/06/2026

An update from Companies House:

Services are available and we’re processing filings

We’re pleased to confirm that as well as all our services being available, we’ve started processing filings submitted since Wednesday 10 June.

We’re currently unable to guarantee same day filings. We hope to be able to resume normal same day filings in the coming days.

We’ve updated our service availability page on GOV.​UK to keep our customers informed.

While our online services are back open as normal, we do ask for your continued patience as we work through the backlog of filings that have been queued during the period of disruption. It may take several days to process some filings.

We’ll have a record of when we received any document, and our teams are working hard to process these as quickly as possible. Where possible, we are processing time-critical filings as a priority.

Information will start to appear on the register and API as we process the filings.

We appreciate that disruption of this kind can have a knock-on effect for your members and our customers. If a customer has missed their deadline due to our service closures, please refer them to our service availability page for further guidance.

Thank you for your patience and understanding during this period.

16/06/2026

This is an official email from Companies House, sent to all registered email addresses. The information in this email is relevant to ALL companies registered in the UK.

This email provides an update on changes to how companies will file their annual accounts from 1 April 2028. Companies will have received an email about these changes last year. Please read this update carefully as some details have changed.

The government has now confirmed how the Companies House accounts reforms measures set out in the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency (ECCT) Act 2023 will be implemented. Under the ECCT Act, the government will reform how companies report information and what information they report when filing their annual accounts with Companies House.

This update follows a pause in implementation last year and extensive engagement with stakeholders to consider their views around the impact some of the reforms may have on companies.

What’s changing?

The government has taken the decision to proceed with the reforms. These include:

- requiring small companies and micro-entities to file profit and loss accounts, as other companies do

- all companies having to file their accounts at Companies House via commercial software

- other smaller technical amendments.

However, to help address concerns, the government is introducing two changes:

- Opt out of profit and loss publication: small and micro-entities will be able to opt out of having their profit and loss accounts published on the public register. Details of how smaller companies can opt out of publication will be confirmed in due course.

- Postponed timings: these reforms will now come into effect on 1 April 2028, rather than 1 April 2027. This will give companies additional time to prepare, with one full accounting year plus nine months (a total of 21 months) to get ready.

In line with the changes, all web and paper routes will be closed for accounts filings from 1 April 2028, but will remain open for other statutory filings.

What you need to do

The April 2028 deadline gives companies a full accounting year plus 9 months to prepare – a total of 21 months. We’re contacting you now so you have as much time as possible to get ready.

Please feel free to contact us with any queries.

06/06/2026

VAT returns – due dates for submission

HMRC has contacted stakeholders from its Virtual Communications Group, including CIOT, ATT and LITRG, to highlight a growing area of confusion around VAT return and payment due dates affecting some VAT registered businesses and their agents, as there is no extension to the VAT return submission or payment dates if the due date falls on a weekend or bank holiday.

HMRC have said that they are increasingly seeing VAT returns incorrectly submitted after the statutory due date, where the 7th of the month falls on a weekend or bank holiday; this appears to be due to taxpayers and/or agents relying on third party websites and AI search summaries providing incorrect information. HMRC does not allow any extension for submitting VAT returns with a due date that falls on a weekend or bank holiday, and doing so could result in late returns and late submission points or penalties.

HMRC will be raising awareness of this issue in its next Agent Update, published later this month.

Their additional points are:

- VAT returns submission deadlines are fixed in law and do not move when they fall on a weekend or bank holiday
- VAT returns can be submitted at weekends or on bank holidays though if a business cannot submit on these days, it should submit by the last working day before the due date
- Agents should review any of their external guidance or website content and correct it where it suggests that VAT returns can be submitted after the due date where it falls on a weekend or bank holiday

When the CIOT conducted a websearch on this topic, they noted that some third party websites and AI summaries also mention that VAT return payments can be made after the due date if it falls on a weekend or a bank holiday, however this is incorrect and payments should also be paid to HMRC by the due date or the last working day beforehand.

They further noted that neither the GOV.UK VAT guidance (when to submit a return/make payments) nor VAT public notice 700/12 (sections 5 and 6) have specific wording around bank holidays or weekends, stating only that VAT returns and payments must be received by the due date. It is only VAT manual page VDSOG400 (which relates to the old Default Surcharge regime, now superseded) that provides additional certainty in respect of when VAT returns must be paid: If the due date falls on a Saturday, Sunday or bank holiday, payment must clear into HMRCs bank account by the working day before the due date, unless the taxpayer’s bank allows faster payments on weekends or bank holidays. As VAT manuals are produced for HMRC officers rather than taxpayers, we have suggested to HMRC that the VAT guidance sources linked above are amended to include additional clarity about weekends and bank holidays for VAT returns and payments so that taxpayers can access it easily.

06/06/2026

Mandating the reporting of benefits in kind and expenses through payroll software - upcoming changes for employers who provide benefits in kind to employees

HM Revenue & Customs (“HMRC”) has created a special page on their website, devoted to mandating the reporting of benefits in kind and expenses through payroll software from April 2027. The guidance does not answer every question as yet but will no doubt be amended many times on the way to implementation.

The guidance is aimed at employers, payroll professionals, software providers and tax agents, to help prepare for the introduction of this change. It provides an overview of how the new reporting system is set to operate from April 2027 onwards to help businesses prepare for the new system. However, the policy positions will not be finalised until legislation and guidance is published.

The basic idea is that most benefits and expenses, Income Tax and Class 1A National Insurance contributions (NICs) will need to be reported through RTI and paid in real time from April 2027.

Employers will also be able to payroll employment-related loans and accommodation on a voluntary basis from April 2027. There are some less common cases, such as tax award schemes and third-party benefits, which are not covered in the guidance.

The general rule is that employers will need to divide the annual cash equivalent of the benefit by the number of relevant pay periods for each employee and the resulting figure for each pay period will be liable to Income Tax, in a similar way to earnings. This figure will also be liable to Class 1A NICs for each pay period, which must be reported alongside employee earnings in each pay period. If the benefit value is not known at the beginning of the year, then employers must estimate the taxable value and divide this by the number of relevant pay periods.

If the cash equivalent changes during the year, then the employer must work out the revised taxable amount to payroll for the remaining pay periods for that tax year.

HMRC recognise that there may be situations where it is not known until sometime after the tax year has started that an employee has received a benefit. In these cases, the benefit can be reported as soon as possible in the remaining pay periods for that tax year. Earlier submissions do not need to be amended if the benefit is reported across the remainder of the relevant tax year.

To read more, please click here:

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