Starting a Business For Dummies, 5th UK Edition

Chapter 14

Managing Your Tax Position

IN THIS CHAPTER

Finding out how much tax you have to pay

Seeing how to cut that bill, legally

Knowing how to handle employment taxes

Getting through a tax investigation intact

The UK government raise many hundreds of billions a year in one form of tax or another. Not only is the amount colossal, but now about a zillion ways exist in which tax is raised. Aside from income tax, which only accounts for £194 billion of the money raised, you have value added tax (VAT) and national insurance (NI), which most people brush across. Then you have taxes or reliefs from paying tax on fuel, capital gains, capital expenditure, research and development, business rates, excise duty, a climate change levy, air passenger duty, landfill tax, an aggregates levy, small company tax relief, vehicle excise duties and stamp duties, to mention but a few that the successful owner manager can expect to encounter. Each of these tax categories in turn has a number of its own categories. VAT, for example, is levied at a standard rate, reduced rate, zero rate and exempt from ...