HMRC updates: CJRS deadlines, Finance Bill 2020-21

Here are the latest updates from HMRC for week commencing 20 July 2020.

Key dates for the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme (CJRS)

HMRC is reminding customers about key dates for the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme (CJRS) and actions they might need to take, to help their business.

Key dates

• Submit your CJRS claim for periods ending on or before 30 June 2020 by 31 July 2020. This is the last date you can make those claims. If you do not make a claim by this date or before, you cannot go on to make a claim for periods starting on or after 1 July.
• From 1 August you must pay National Insurance (NI) and pensions contributions for employees, including when they are furloughed. CJRS Grants can no longer be used to cover these costs. You can submit your August claim in advance now.
• Prepare for further changes to the scheme on 1 September (when grants will be for 70% of wages) and 1 October (when grants will be for 60% of wages).

Live webinars offering more support on changes to the scheme and how they impact you are available to book online. 

HMRC is urging people not to call for more information before checking GOV.UK or joining one of HMRC’s webinars. This will leave phone lines open for urgent needs.

Register now for Eat Out to Help Out Scheme

Restaurants and other establishments serving food for consumption on their premises are being encouraged to sign up to the Eat Out to Help Out Scheme. By midnight 19 July, 32,362 restaurants have already done so.

Businesses can find information about the scheme and how to register online at GOV.UK.

Restaurants, bars, cafes and other establishments who use the scheme will offer a 50% reduction, up to a maximum of £10 per person, to all diners who eat and/or drink-in (not including alcohol) on Mondays to Wednesdays throughout August. The restaurant can claim back the money from the government.

You can register for the Eat Out to Help Out Scheme if your establishment:

• sells food that is intended for consumption on the premises when purchased
• provides its own dining area or shares a dining area with another establishment for eat-in meals
• has registered as a food business with the relevant local authority on or before 7 July  

Finance Bill 2020-21: What it means for your clients

Today, HMRC has published ‘Building a trusted, modern tax administration system’ which sets out HMRC’s 5 to 10-year vision for the future of tax administration. This plan is to ensure HMRC creates a modernised digital tax system, that is underpinned by modern digital infrastructure and uses closer to real-time information to provide better-targeted support – making it easier for businesses and individual taxpayers to pay tax and reduce avoidable errors and fraud. A key foundation to that vision is the future roadmap for Making Tax Digital (MTD).

MTD will be extended to the remaining VAT registered population from April 2022, and to unincorporated businesses and landlords who file Income Tax Self Assessment returns from April 2023 if their annual gross income from business or property sources is £10,000 or more. 
HMRC will also consult in the Autumn on the detail of extending MTD to incorporated businesses with Corporate Tax obligations.

Today, as part of Finance Bill 2020-21, the government has also made announcements on tax administration, business rates, and a number of other areas of tax policy and has published a number of previously announced tax policy documents. Where supporting documents have already been published, they are linked to below. Otherwise, more detail can be found in the Financial Secretary to the Treasury’s written statement to Parliament. 

These include:

• Draft legislation and a consultation about tackling the promotors of tax avoidance
   
• A call for evidence on tackling disguised remuneration for tax avoidance schemes
   
• Draft legislation, alongside a Tax Information and Impact Note, to introduce conditionality in England and Wales for licences for the taxi/private hire and scrap metal sector.
   
• A consultation response setting out how the Government will amend HMRC’s civil information powers, to ensure the UK can continue to comply with international tax transparency standards.
   
• A consultation on a National Insurance Contributions holiday for employers that hire former members of the armed forces.
   
• A consultation on the Carbon Emissions Tax.
   
• A consultation on whether the scope of qualifying R&D tax credit costs should be extended to include spending on data and on cloud computing.
   
• A call for evidence about modernising stamp taxes by replacing the current paper-based shares framework system.
   
• An Economic crime levy consultation.
   
• A call for evidence on a fundamental review of business rates.
   
• Draft legislation on changes to Termination Payments Rules for Post-Employment Notice Pay.
   
• Draft legislation on Enterprise Management Incentives and the protection of share options before and during COVID-19.
   
• Two minor technical amendments to Corporate Interest Restriction legislation.
   
• A call for evidence on Pensions Tax Administration to meet the 2019 general election manifesto commitment to review the two main methods of providing tax relief.
   
• Draft legislation and a Tax Information and Impact Note to ensure that collective money purchase schemes, to be introduced by the Pension Schemes Bill currently going through Parliament, can operate as registered pension schemes for tax purposes.
   
• A response to a call for evidence on Insurance Premium Tax.
   
• Draft legislation and a Tax Information and Impact Note on reducing the van benefit charge to zero for vans that produce zero carbon emissions.
   
• A summary of the responses to the 2019 review of the Aggregates Levy, setting out the government’s response and planned next steps.
   
• Draft legislation to add the Welsh language broadcaster S4C to the special VAT refund scheme for public bodies.
   
• An announcement on the next steps for the small brewers’ relief review that the scheme’s taper, which is used to calculate the relief due, will be spread over a wider range of production starting at 2,100 hectolitres and be converted to a cash basis. A technical consultation on the details of these changes will be brought forward to the Autumn.
   
• An announcement that a call for evidence for the alcohol duty structures review will be published before the end of September 2020.
   
• An announcement that the next revaluation of non-domestic property in England will take effect on 1 April 2023 and will be based on property values as of 1 April 2021. This is so that it better reflects the impact of COVID-19.

David Nunn is a former Content Manager at AAT.