These tax credits replaced Working Families' Tax Credit, Disabled Person's Tax Credit and Children's Tax Credit and the child-related elements of Income Support and Jobseeker's Allowance.
New rules relating to residence and domicile came into effect on 6 April 2008. The changes were originally announced in October 2007 as part of the Pre Budget report, and in January 2008 draft legislation to implement the main aspects of the changes was released.
For many years, people leaving jobs to become self-employed were advised to instead set up one man companies to provide their services. One reason for this might be the security offered by limited liability, but in many cases the use of a 'personal service company' was to create the opportunity for some quite substantial savings, particularly of national insurance contributions (NIC's).
It is a fundamental part of the self assessment system that responsibility lies with you, the taxpayer, to file Tax Returns and pay the right amount of tax, at the right time - you must not wait for the HM Revenue & Customs to ask.
If you form a partnership to carry on a business, you must register it separately with HM Revenue & Customs even if the partners have previously been self employed. If the partners are new to business, they must also register individually. Partnerships are registered with a special HM Revenue & Customs partnership team, based at Longbenton near Newcastle.
