6 April brings a variety of changes to the tax rules. The start of the tax year on Monday 6 April (Easter Monday) heralds a variety of changes to tax and pension rules, few of them welcome. Dividend tax The rate of tax on dividends will increase by two percentage points if you pay tax at basic rate (8.75% to 10.75%) or higher rate (33.75% to 35.75%). The additional rate tax on dividends remains unchanged at 39.35%, as does the dividend allowance at just £500. Making Tax Digit

Annual inflation ended 2025 at 3.4%, up from 2.5% in 2023, but not all prices rose over the year. Source: Office for National Statistics Inflation has been on something of a rollercoaster in recent years, buffeted by the COVID-19 pandemic and the Ukraine war, among other factors. The Consumer Prices Index (CPI) annual inflation reading for December 2025 was 3.4%, higher than the 2.5% of December 2024, but lower than the 4.0% of December 2023 and the 10.5% of December 2022. Th

If you have received a new tax code recently, check it. Do not assume it is correct. A recent Freedom of Information request from a Top 20 accountancy firm revealed some bad news for taxpayers. HMRC was asked about overpaid income tax in 2023/24 and provided an estimate of £3,470 million owed to 5.6 million taxpayers. The accountants pointed to Pay As You Earn (PAYE) tax codes as being one of the major reasons why HMRC’s coffers were being overfilled. If you are employed and/

Many potentially affected taxpayers have not yet engaged with a major change in tax reporting. Communication is arguably not one of HMRC’s strongest points. While its requests for tax returns are made within the start of the tax year, it is not so prompt in other areas. The latest HMRC performance statistics, issued in January 2026, reveal that between January to November 2025: More than one-in-five pieces of correspondence had not received a reply within 15 working days, and

As the memories of January’s festivities fade behind us, it is time to turn our thoughts to 5 April. The 2024 Budget revised the Chancellor’s fiscal calendar. From now on, the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) will make only one full assessment a year of the UK’s finances, alongside the Autumn Budget, leaving the Spring Statement (due this year on 3 March) as little more than a minor update. (1) The tax year will still end on 5 April (Easter Sunday in 2026). Normally, ma

The consequences of successive governments freezing income tax personal allowance are beginning to emerge. On 6 April 2016, the new State pension was launched at the rate of £155.65 a week (£8,093.80 a year)(1) and the income tax personal allowance increased by £400 to £11,000.1 If you were about to reach State pension age (SPA) – then 65 for men and 63 for women (2) – you had about £2,900 of headroom above your State pension before you started to pay income tax on any other