BellaBoo

Hi not HMRC Admin but it is not possible to separate the legal & beneficial ownership in Scotland. Scottish law doesn't recognise the concept so it isn't possible, full stop. However I'd also point out that you cannot just transfer the income to a spouse, even in England. You'd need to transfer the capital as well due to settlement rules around gifts to spouses that are a right to income. https://www.gov.uk/hmrc-internal-manuals/trusts-settlements-and-estates-manual/tsem4205 You'll need your lenders agreement to transfer any interest in the property as any property needs to pass unencumbered. Your spouse won't be able to claim relief on the interest paid if the mortgage is in your name. If they assume any liability for the mortgage then that counts as consideration for SDLT & LBTT purposes.

Medical bills have an unavoidable personal purpose to them so that even if there is also a trade purpose, the expenditure can't be wholly and exclusively incurred for trade purposes because of the unavoidable personal purpose. https://www.gov.uk/hmrc-internal-manuals/business-income-manual/bim37940

Hi, not a HMRC Admin but may be able to help. The reason £8,000 is added to your pension when you pay £6,400 is because the pension have claimed the basic rate relief due on the contribution. This means any refund to you could only be made for any additional tax you paid. Based on the earnings you have given, this would be the difference between 40% (what you paid) and 20% (what the pension has already claimed). As this is 20% which is the same as the basic rate relief, it is nice and easy to calculate as £1,600 refund. Further, HMRC Admin are correct where they say it doesn't reduce your gross salary. But reduction of personal allowance isn't based on gross salary (you asked the Admin the wrong question to put it bluntly). It is based on adjusted net income and pension contributions do reduce your adjusted net income. It will be reduced by the amount actually contributed to the pension (£8,000 in your case). Last point, if I have understood your circumstances correctly, you're likely on a normal tax code because you weren't expecting to go over 100k. If that is the case, you won't have paid any tax on a reduced personal allowance in order to get refunded for it. But if you didn't make the pension contribution then you would end up being asked to pay it. Hope that makes sense and helps provide a better understanding of what happens or needs to happen.

Hi, I'm not a HMRC Admin but your accountant is correct. The entity (the ltd company) carrying on the trade don't own the property or have any right to occupy it as business premises. So it can't be a business expense unless it is paid to you as remuneration (with the Tax & NIC consequences). I would also explain the page you've linked does not apply to employees or directors working from home, you have taken the manual page out of context. For employee & director rules you'd need to consult the EIM instead of BIM.