Another tax headache for small businesses

SIR – I wonder how many people are aware of a disaster looming with “Making Tax Digital”, the new tax return system due to start April 2018.

Any business or property investor receiving gross income (not net earnings) of over £10,000 a year will have to file five returns for each tax year on the HMRC website. How many small businesses and small investment property owners will be able to cope without having to use accountants?

More importantly, how will HMRC cope with the millions of additional bits of information, as well as chasing up missing information and issuing penalties? It can hardly cope now.

The accountancy and tax professions are trying to get some sense out of HMRC. They fighting to increase the level of income required to the VAT limit, as those registered for VAT file four VAT returns per year anyway. They are also calling for a more realistic time frame, to give taxpayers a better chance to adjust. Harold Stone Edgware, Middlesex SIR – The Government has slipped a nasty new tax through under the radar. Few people have noticed – and those who have wrongly think it’s somebody else’s problem.

From May, there will be a new “probate tax”. Estates worth £500,000 will be charged £4,000, estates worth £1 million will be charged £8,000, and those worth £2 million will be charged £20,000.

With the average London house already costing over £500,000 and prices still rising, it won’t be long before this sly tax hits many people. David Bartholomew Henley-on-Thames, Oxfordshire