Julian Coe

🚨 A Costly Oversight: Why Even Dormant Companies Need a Tax Health Check 🚨 A few months ago, we met a client who had registered a company with ambitious future plans—but for now, it was dormant. Thinking inactivity meant no action was needed, they didn’t file monthly VAT and PAYE returns, nor the annual final return. No income, no tax—right? Wrong. Despite being dormant, the law requires timely tax filings once a company is registered. By the time they came to us, their startup was facing accumulated penalties and interest that far exceeded their initial capital investment. This situation could have been completely avoided with a simple annual Tax Health Check and timely professional advice. 💡 Here’s the takeaway: Whether your business is active, scaling, or just starting—compliance starts from day one. Understanding your obligations early prevents unnecessary stress and costs later. At RSM Tanzania, we support mid-market clients across Tanzania with proactive, practical tax advice to keep you compliant and confident. 🔎 When was the last time your company had a tax health check? Let’s talk. #TaxCompliance #RSM #MidMarketMatters #Tanzania #TaxHealthCheck #BusinessAdvisory #DormantCompany #Entrepreneurship

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Starting 18 November 2025, you’ll need to prove who you are before you can run a UK company.🔐 Big changes are coming under the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act 2023 and mandatory identity verification is at the heart of it. ✅ Who must verify? 1. Directors & PSCs of UK companies 2. LLP members 3. Directors of overseas companies with UK establishments ⏳ Timeline: • Transition period: 12 months from 18 Nov 2025 • New directors/PSCs must verify before appointment is accepted • Existing ones must verify by their next confirmation statement (or other filing deadline) 🆔 How to verify: • Free via GOV.UK One Login • Or through an Authorised Corporate Service Provider (ACSP) ⚠️ What happens if you don’t? • Your appointment or filings could be rejected • You may lose the ability to act as a director/PSC • Companies can face penalties 📢 Action point: Get your ID ready and make sure your company records (e.g. date of birth, PSC details) are up to date well before the deadline.

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MTD IT IS COMING 😱 Making Tax Digital for Income Tax (MTD IT) is the biggest change to the UK tax system in decades 🤒 From April 2026, sole traders and landlords earning over £50,000 must keep digital records and submit quarterly updates to HMRC using compliant software ✅ (PS Dext have one of those compliant softwares called Dext Solo 😂 ) As an accountant or bookkeeper, MTD IT is going to change how you price services, engage clients and manage workflows, its a lot! 🤯 But MTD IT is also about opportunities, not just obligations 🫡 The MTD Oracle (AKA Paul L.) has produced a top tier guide for free for you to use to get your head around whats to come 🤩 Interested? Link in comments! 🥳 PS Nick Charnley my good pal also works in tax and is my pal in the picture 🥸 #mtd #mtdit #hmrc

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I was talking to a prospect where there is one person in the tax team being responsible for overseeing the VAT obligations of 32 entities. Imagine, 32 entities!!! That's not a "process", that's a key person risk waiting to materialize. Let’s do simple maths: one registration per entity, monthly filings. Assume just one filing (not possible in practice). That is 384 filings under the supervision of a single person. Of course, local finance people and local advisors played a role in fulfilling these obligations. But the single person in the tax team looking after this, is building up an insane amount of central knowledge about these VAT filings. If not properly documented, this is all at risk… … unless… … you have a workflow engine that organically captures the end-to-end audit trail… Invest in workflow tooling. Cover your global tax operations. Because one day, your key people will leave. Whether you want it or not. And in the absence of the right tooling, it will be painful. Very painful.

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Your Tax Return Says One Thing. Your Instagram Says Another. Guess Who Notices? Your accounts show £14,000 of profit. Your Instagram shows a £75k Audi, a week in Dubai, and dinner at The Ivy. Spot the problem? So does HMRC. HMRC now uses AI to cross-check lifestyle against declared income. Social media, online ads, even tagged photos - it’s all data. If the maths doesn’t add up, the algorithm flags it. Sometimes it’s innocent - the Rolex was borrowed, the car was leased, the trip was business. But AI doesn’t care about context. It just kicks off an enquiry. So what should you do? • Make sure your declared income matches reality • Remember: social media is public and permanent • Be ready to explain if the lifestyle looks bigger than the numbers Tax isn’t just about receipts anymore. It’s about the story your digital footprint tells. ⸻ If you’d like a free copy of my full 89 Tax Tips guide, just send me a PM and I’ll get it over to you. #TaxTips #HMRC #DigitalTax

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Accountancy and advisory firm Dains Accountants & Advisers, which has a major office in Derby, has acquired Castle Donington-based TBAT Innovation Ltd Innovation, its third deal since securing private equity backing from @IK Partners. More expansion for Richard McNeilly and team. https://lnkd.in/ec6AqypR

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New R&D Tax Credit statistics have dropped this week.   The latest HMRC statistics for the 2023–24 tax year speak of the larger underlying story that has been a bit of a best-seller for Founders, CEOs, CFOs, and R&D teams: - Total R&D tax relief claimed: £7.6 billion... down 2% from the previous year. - Number of claims: 46,950... down 26%. - SME-scheme relief saw a dramatic 29% drop in value claimed. - RDEC (for larger/non-SME claims) relief increased by 36%. - London & South East still dominate: 24% of claims, 31% of value. - Sector concentration remains high: Information & Communication (Software), Manufacturing, and Professional/Scientific/Technical make up ~72% of claims.   What’s really going on here? - Many SMEs are being discouraged from claiming through a variety of reasons, including lower relief generosity, higher thresholds, more administrative burden, and the increased risk profile with a higher proportion of claims being enquired into. - The barrier to entry is rising. Smaller/first-time claimants are dropping out. - Larger claimants (or those with the expertise available to them to navigate complexity) are becoming relatively more dominant.   Why this matters for your business (and how to act)? - It’s getting harder to qualify: Many claim reports that could have been viable a few years ago now require stronger narratives, clearer technical rigour, and much more stringent compliance (or may in some cases not suffice at all). - SMEs must be smarter: The days of “spray-and-pray” claims are ending. You need data, evidence, and structure, in order to ensure your claim remains robust and compliant. - Don’t let inertia cost you: We’re seeing companies lose relief simply because they didn’t adjust to the new rules in time (particularly with the Claim Notification Form, which we have spoken about several times on Linkedin). - Get ahead on compliance and audit readiness: The more you can show method, consistency, documentation, and defensibility, the better your chances of surviving scrutiny.   If your company has conducted R&D activities and hasn’t revisited your strategy in light of the recent changes, then you may already be on the back foot.   At Walmer Group, we see these shifts every day and help companies in not just preparing robust R&D claims, but navigating around the plethora of potholes that the Incentive has produced.   If you want an audit of your existing process, or simply have questions about what this means for you or your clients, then drop us a message. We'd be happy to walk through it together.   #RDTaxRelief #Innovation #UKfunding

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