Sarah Moss

The Government had widely trailed that increases in the National Minimum Wage (NMW) and employer’s NIC were coming but the scale of the Budget changes – particularly on NIC - shocked many businesses.

New tax rules apply from April 2025 – are you ready?

The Remedial Pension Service Statements (RPSS) are now being issued to members.  As a reminder this is in response to the McCloud judgement to put members pensionable earnings from 1 April 2015 to 31 March 2022 back into their legacy scheme, being the 1995/2008 NHS Pension Scheme.

Despite recent falling inflation, businesses are still feeling the pressure of increased costs, particularly from April with the increases to National Minimum Wage. For GP practices, for whom staffing is often their largest area of expenditure, this will have a considerable impact on profits and monthly outgoings.

Explore the upcoming basis period reform impacting GP partnerships for the 2023/24 tax year.

If you are going to replace a car that you also use for business purposes, then you might want to consider going electric. This is good for the environment but can also be good for your finances.

At the start of a New Year people often think of making resolutions to improve their physical and mental health but it is also worth thinking of financial health at this time.  

In the 2023 Autumn Statement the chancellor announced a reduction in the main rates of National Insurance Contributions (NIC), these changes impact practice employees and self-employed GPs.

As primary care navigates its way out of the post-covid income protection, practices are seeing reduced profits and tightening cashflow. It is hard to manage vital issues like cashflow unless you know what is happening in real time, therefore, it is important that practices have effective financial management information and tools that enable them to report against budgeted figures. 

There has never been a more important time for GP practices to have a thorough understanding of their day-to-day business finances and cashflow position. 

Explore the latest guidance on assessing the employment status of locum pharmacists in the UK.

Explore the implications of rising interest rates on practice property loans in the medical practitioners' sector. Optimize your financial strategies.

Learn strategies to reduce the risk of a tax charge related to pension annual allowance in the medical practitioners' sector. Optimize your financial planning.

Stay informed about changes to VAT penalties after 1 January 2023 in the medical practitioners' sector. Ensure compliance and minimize financial risks.

At the time of writing, contract negotiations for general practice in England look gloomy with Dr Kieran Sharrock, acting chair of the GPC commenting that the contract offer was “insulting” and a “slap in the face”.

For higher earning GPs, the ability to build up their pension is subject to restrictions. 

At the Autumn Statement, the Chancellor said that we are all going to pay more tax in future years. While there is often little you can do about frozen income tax allowances, there are still many tax reliefs available when it comes to investing for your future.

Are you in doubt over tax treatment of staff benefits and rewards? Find out more.

Find out about the key efficiency benefits of digital accounting.

Investing in new machinery and equipment for your practice can be an expensive  business but tax reliefs, known as capital allowances, are available to help you.

Although the government took action in the 2020 Budget to limit the impact of the pensions annual allowance charge by raising relevant thresholds, the current high rate of inflation may bring back the spectre of the annual allowance charge for many GPs.

In common with most government pensions, the NHS Pension Scheme has moved to a career average revalued earnings (CARE) basis from 1 April 2022 (rather than a final salary basis). However, following consultation, the new rates of pension contribution required by NHS staff at different levels of income will not be applied until 1 October 2022.

As businesses emerge from the COVID period there are still lingering pressures on general practice which, coupled with forthcoming changes to the National Living Wage and National Insurance mean that more than ever practices need to have robust financial systems in place to track and forecast profitability and cashflow.

The NIC increase from 6 April 2022 may seem relatively straightforward to apply to your practice’s payroll but, because of the way the new Health and Social Care Levy (HSCL) is being introduced there are a number of pitfalls for the unwary.  

The new calendar year may have started but there are still a number of important deadlines coming up for GPs to deal with to keep their taxes and finances up to date.

Money may be the last thing on your mind right now, but with NIC due to rise in April, and tax allowances frozen for the next few years, we all owe it to ourselves to give our family finances an overhaul at least once a year.  

In the summer, HMRC announced reform of the ‘basis periods’ for the taxable profits of sole traders, partnerships with trading income.

Following the Government’s 2015 public pension scheme reforms, several public sector workers took the Government to court arguing it had unlawfully treated existing public sector workers differently based upon each member’s age.