Young persons who turned 18 on or after 1 September 2020 may have cash waiting in a dormant Child Trust Fund (CTF) account. This could be as much as or more than £1,000. The actual amount on deposit depends on certain factors.

Children born after 31 August 2002 and before 3 January 2011 were entitled to a CTF account provided they met the necessary conditions. These funds were invested in long-term saving accounts for newly born children. HMRC has confirmed that there are many thousands of teenagers that have turned 18 and not yet claimed the cash to which they are entitled.

Around 7 million CTF accounts were set up since the scheme was launched in 2002, roughly 6 million by parents or guardians and a further 1 million set up by HMRC where parents or guardians did not open an account.

Around 55,000 accounts mature each month and HMRC has created a simple online tool to help young people find out where their account is held.

Economic Secretary to the Treasury, John Glen, said:

‘It’s fantastic that so many young people have been able to access the money saved for them in Child Trust Funds, but we want to make sure that nobody misses out on the chance to invest in their future.’

If you’re unsure if you have an account or where it may be, it’s easy to track down your provider online.

The actual CTF accounts are not held by HMRC, but by CTF providers who are financial services firms. Anyone can pay into the account, with an annual limit of £9,000, and there’s no tax to pay on the CTF savings interest or profit.

The government has launched a new £500 million package of support for vulnerable households. The new Household Support Fund will be used to help those most in need with essentials over the coming months as the country continues its recovery from the pandemic.

The fund will be used to help support millions of households in England and monies will be distributed by councils. This means that local councils will also be able to use the funding to provide discretionary support to vulnerable households. This could include using small grants to meet daily needs such as food, clothing, and utilities. Cash will be made available to Local Authorities in October 2021.

The Barnett formula will apply in the usual way to additional funding in England. The devolved administrations will therefore receive up to £79m of the £500m. This will be allocated as follows: £41m for the Scottish Government, £25m for the Welsh Government and £14m for the Northern Ireland Executive.

This fund is in addition to other previously announced measures including the Warm Home Discount which provides a £140 rebate on energy bills each winter to over 2.2 million low-income households and the Cold Weather Payment which provides £25 extra a week for poorer households when the temperature is consistently below zero.

The introduction of Making Tax Digital (MTD) for Income Tax Self-Assessment (ITSA) has been delayed by one year until April 2024. This change was announced in a Written Statement to Parliament. The reason for the delay was given as combination of the issues many UK businesses and their representatives are facing as a result of the pandemic as well as feedback from interested parties.

MTD for ITSA will fundamentally change the way businesses, the self-employed and landlords interact with HMRC. The regime will require businesses and individuals to register, file, pay and update their information using an online tax account. From April 2024, the rules will apply to taxpayers who file Income Tax Self-Assessment tax returns with business or property income over £10,000 annually.

General partnerships will not be required to join MTD for ITSA until a year later, in April 2025. The date other types of partnerships will be required to join will be confirmed in the future. The new system of penalties for the late filing and late payment of tax for ITSA will also be aligned with the new MTD dates.

Some businesses and agents are already keeping digital records and providing updates to HMRC as part of a live pilot to test and develop the MTD for ITSA. The pilot is not affected by the delay and will be extended in 2022-23 in preparation for larger scale testing in 2023-24. Under the pilot, qualifying landlords and sole traders (or their agents) can use software to keep digital records and send Income Tax updates instead of filing a Self-Assessment tax return.

The MTD regime started in April 2019 for VAT purposes only when businesses with a turnover above the VAT threshold were mandated to keep their records digitally and provide their VAT return information to HMRC using MTD compatible software. From April 2022, MTD will be extended to all VAT registered businesses with turnover below the VAT threshold of £85,000.

The Office of Tax Simplification (OTS) was established in July 2010, to provide advice to the Chancellor on simplifying the UK tax system. The OTS has recently published a recording of an online video update setting out its recent publications on three separate issues. 

The insights into tax changes that have been considered by the OTS are as follows:

1. Capital Gains Tax first and second reports. The first report looks at the policy design and principles underpinning the tax whilst the second report explores key technical and administrative issues. This included recommendations to align the CGT rates with Income Tax rates, changes to Business Asset Disposal Relief, improved CGT guidance and a review of main residence relief.
2. Making better use of third-party data. The report sets out proposals for making better use of data held by third parties, such as reporting interest on savings and investments from banks directly to HMRC. 
3. Exploring a change to the UK tax year end date. The OTS has explored changing the 5 April year end date for individuals. The OTS examined what a change would entail, and what benefits it would bring (looking at 31 March and 31 December year end dates). If the government wants to take this further, then additional scoping work and early planning for longer term implementation would be required. 

HMRC is warning new students starting university that they could be targeted by scammers trying to steal their money and personal details. As new students start the academic year, they can be particularly vulnerable to tax scams. This is especially prevalent if they have a part-time job and are new to interacting with HMRC. This year, there is a significant increase in the numbers of students attending university and means that more young people may choose to take on part-time work. 

Many tax scams are directly targeting university students. Fraudulent emails and texts will regularly include links which take students to websites where their information can be stolen. Between April and May this year, 18- to 24-year olds reported more than 5,000 phone scams to HMRC.

These scams often offer fake tax refunds which HMRC does not offer by SMS or email.  Students can also be approached to act as ‘money mules’, with offers of various rewards for transferring funds through their own, genuine financial accounts, inadvertently laundering criminal funds.

Commenting on the warning, HMRC’s Head of Cyber Security Operations at HMRC, said: 

‘Our advice is to be wary if you are contacted out of the blue by someone asking for money or personal information. We see high numbers of fraudsters contacting people claiming to be from HMRC. If in doubt, our advice is – do not reply directly to anything suspicious, but contact HMRC through GOV.UK straight away and search GOV.UK for HMRC scams’ .