Year End Tax Review 2009/2010 Contents Lead articles The year ahead... This year, next year Pension hit Employees Too much NIC NIC and pensions Company cars Tax-free benefits Business - General Time to incorporate? His and hers Family bonus Profit and loss Show me the money Can't pay, won't pay? Turning back the clock Business - VAT Standard VAT or flat VAT? VAT goes down - must come up? European revolution A good start for VAT Happy returns? Investments Top-up savings Rainy day money Capital Gains Gains favoured Splitting gains A place in the country Holiday lets end Families Family fortunes Where there's a Will Credits and debits Piggy banks Still trustworthy? Administration Penalty shoot-out Paperwork, paperwork Pay tax later Opportunity knocks again Charity Give and save Non-Domiciled People Home and away Interest Interesting times

Opportunity knocks again In 2007, the taxman offered a "disclosure facility" to people who had undeclared income or gains in offshore accounts. This was prompted by HMRC obtaining lists of people who had offshore accounts with the high street banks, and finding that there were far more of them than declared foreign income on their tax returns. If people came forward then to pay the outstanding tax and interest on it, they were offered only a 10% penalty instead of the potential maximum 100%. The implication was that they would then come looking for everyone else and impose higher penalties. Now there is a second "disclosure opportunity", running from September 2009 to 12 March 2010. The same 10% penalty is offered, but it will be doubled to 20% for anyone who knew about the previous opportunity and failed to come forward. To take advantage, taxpayers are supposed to have notified HMRC by 4 January 2010 that a disclosure will be coming, with the details to follow later. Anyone who fails to take advantage this time can expect a higher penalty if they are discovered later by HMRC - they don't propose to offer a third drink in the last chance saloon. Action Point! Do you have any offshore bank accounts? If you do, are you sure that everything that should be declared has been declared?