Solid Accountants

If you are a business owner thinking about passing shares to a family member or the next generation, there is a change to Capital Gains Tax gift holdover relief worth knowing about.

Holdover relief allows CGT to be deferred when certain business assets are gifted rather than sold. Instead of triggering an immediate tax charge, the gain is passed to the recipient and becomes taxable only when they eventually dispose of the asset. It is commonly used by owner-managers transferring shares as part of succession planning.

The government has published draft legislation that will update the formula used to calculate how much relief is available. The change takes effect from 6 April 2027 and is designed to remove distortions that arose when certain intangible assets and shareholding exemptions were introduced years ago.

In practice, this means the relief should operate more generously for some share transfers than it currently does.

If you are considering transferring shares in your business, whether to a family member, into a trust or as part of a wider restructure, the timing of that transfer relative to April 2027 may be worth thinking through carefully before you commit.

The Autumn Budget is confirmed for 28 October 2026.

It will be Chancellor John Healey's first Budget, and for business owners it is one of the most important dates in the financial calendar. Announcements made on Budget Day can affect corporation tax, business rates, employment costs, investment reliefs and more.

No specific tax changes have been confirmed yet. But that is precisely why now is a useful time to review where your business stands.

If your tax planning, salary and dividend structure, or investment decisions are based on the rules as they stood a year ago, a pre-Budget review makes sense. Not to predict what will be announced, but to make sure your current position is as strong as it can be before anything changes.

The businesses that tend to navigate Budget changes best are those that go in with clear numbers and an up to date plan, rather than scrambling to react after the fact.

If you run your business through a limited company and pay yourself in dividends, this tax year brings a change worth understanding.

The dividend tax rate has increased by two per cent from April 2026. That applies to both basic and higher rate taxpayers.

Combined with the dividend allowance being reduced to £500 in recent years, the amount of dividend income you can take before paying tax is now significantly lower than it was a few years ago.

For a director taking a modest salary topped up with dividends, this shift affects your take-home pay in a way that is easy to overlook if you are not actively reviewing your structure.

It does not mean dividends are no longer the right approach. For most owner-managed businesses they still are. But the calculation has changed, and the numbers need revisiting.

If you have not had a conversation with your accountant about how this affects your personal tax position for 2026 to 2027, it is worth having before the year moves on any further.""
This is one of the most common points of confusion we see with growing businesses, and it catches people out at the worst moments.

You can be profitable on paper and still run out of money. Here is how it happens.

You invoice a client in June and they pay in September. Your accounts show the income but your bank account has not seen it yet.

You invest in stock or equipment. Your profit and loss does not show it as a cost but your cash balance drops immediately.

You have a strong quarter, a large tax bill arrives, and suddenly the numbers stop adding up.

Profitable businesses do occasionally fail because of cash flow problems. It is not common but it happens, and it is entirely avoidable with the right visibility.

Knowing the difference between what you have earned and what you actually have available changes how you run your business.

There is a version of running a business where the numbers are always clear.

Where you know your margin before you price a job. Where you can see three months ahead on cash flow. Where the conversation with your accountant is not a yearly debrief but an ongoing part of how you make decisions.

That kind of visibility is not reserved for large companies with finance teams. It is what a good advisory relationship looks like for an SME.

Most business owners we speak to have never had that. Not because it was not possible, but because nobody offered it.

The businesses that grow consistently tend to have one thing in common. Financial clarity. Not luck, not just hard work. Clarity.

If you have never had a conversation about what that could look like for your business, we are happy to start one. Message us or visit solid.accountants.

MTD for Income Tax is live, and one of the questions we hear most often is whether digital record keeping means everything has to be done through an app.

The short answer is yes, but it is far less complicated than most people expect.

HMRC now requires records to be kept in a compatible digital format and quarterly updates to be submitted through approved software. A spreadsheet sent to your accountant once a year no longer meets the standard.

The software options available, including Xero, QuickBooks, FreeAgent, Sage and KashFlow, are built for people who are not accountants. Most have mobile apps and many connect directly to your bank account to pull in transactions automatically.

The bigger shift is not the technology. It is the habit.

Quarterly submissions mean keeping on top of your records throughout the year rather than catching up at year end. For most people who make the switch, that turns out to be a better way to run things.

Profit and cash flow are not the same thing.

This is one of the most common points of confusion we see with growing businesses, and it catches people out at the worst moments.

You can be profitable on paper and still run out of money. Here is how it happens.

You invoice a client in June and they pay in September. Your accounts show the income but your bank account has not seen it yet.

You invest in stock or equipment. Your profit and loss does not show it as a cost but your cash balance drops immediately.

You have a strong quarter, a large tax bill arrives, and suddenly the numbers stop adding up.

Profitable businesses do occasionally fail because of cash flow problems. It is not common but it happens, and it is entirely avoidable with the right visibility.

Knowing the difference between what you have earned and what you actually have available changes how you run your business.

Most people think VAT registration means paying more.

For PCO and private hire drivers, the reality is quite different.

Under UK VAT rules, Uber and similar platforms are classed as the supplier of the electronic service.

That means the VAT liability sits with the platform, not the driver.

Here is what that can mean in practice:

You may be able to register for VAT and reclaim it on genuine business costs.

Fuel, vehicle maintenance, equipment and EV charging are all areas where VAT reclaims can add up over the course of a year.

This is a legitimate tax position that thousands of drivers across the UK are entitled to.

Most are simply not aware it exists.

Whether it applies to your specific setup depends on how you work and which platform you drive for.

It is worth understanding before you assume it does not apply to you.

We started Solid Accountants because we kept seeing the same thing.

Business owners who were working incredibly hard — and still felt like the numbers were working against them.

Not because they were doing anything wrong. But because nobody had ever sat down and explained what the numbers actually meant for their decisions.

That's not accountancy. That's just compliance.

We work differently. We sit alongside you, look at where your business is going, and help you make decisions with clarity — not guesswork.

If your accountant only calls at year-end, you deserve more than that.

What would change in your business if you actually understood your numbers? Tell us in the comments.

MTD for Income Tax is now live for anyone earning over £50,000.

If that's you — and you're still keeping records in a spreadsheet or a shoebox — this matters.

From April 2026, HMRC requires quarterly digital submissions. Not annual. Quarterly.

Here's what you need to have in place:

✅ Compatible software (Xero, QuickBooks, FreeAgent, Sage)
✅ Digital records for all income and expenses
✅ Quarterly updates submitted on time
✅ Final declaration by 31 January each year

The £30k threshold drops in April 2027 — so even if you're not caught yet, you will be.

Not sure where you stand? Drop a comment or message us to book a free 15-minute MTD readiness call. No obligation.