Author: Glenn

Two separate £1,000 tax allowances for property and trading income were introduced in April 2017. If you have both types of income highlighted below, then you can claim a £1,000 allowance for each.

The £1,000 exemptions from tax apply to:

• If you make up to £1,000 from self-employment, casual services (such as babysitting or gardening) or hiring personal equipment (such as power tools). This is known as the trading allowance.
• If your annual gross property income is £1,000 or less, from one or more property businesses you will not have to tell HMRC or declare this income on a tax return. For example, from renting a driveway. This is known as the property allowance.

Where each respective allowance covers all the individual’s relevant income (before expenses) the income is tax-free and does not have to be declared. Taxpayers with higher amounts of income will have the choice, when calculating their taxable profits, of deducting the allowance from their receipts, instead of deducting the actual allowable expenses.

You cannot use the allowances in a tax year, if you have any trade or property income from:

• a company you, or someone connected to you, owns or controls;
• a partnership where you, or someone connected to you, are partners; or from
• your employer or the employer of your spouse or civil partner.

You cannot use the property allowance if you:

• claim the tax reducer for finance costs, such as mortgage interest for a residential property; or
• deduct expenses from income from letting a room in your own home, instead of using the Rent a Room scheme.

The Information Commissioner’s Office has a simple guide that explains what you need to do in the 72 hours following a data breach.

The seven step approach advocated is set out below:

It’s understandable if you’re concerned about what happens next. But we’re here to help you understand what happened and to prevent it happening again.

By law, you've got to report a personal data breach to the ICO without undue delay (if it meets the threshold for reporting) and within 72 hours.

Pull the facts together as quickly as possible.

Your priority is to establish what has happened to the personal data affected. If you can recover the data, do so immediately. Also, you should do whatever you can to protect those who will be most impacted.

You should now assess what you feel the risk of harm is to those affected, whether that’s your customers, members or service users.

If possible, you should give specific and clear advice to people on the steps they can take to protect themselves, and what you’re willing to do to help them. If you don’t think there’s a high risk to the people involved, you don’t have to let them know about the incident.

If the breach is reportable, you can report it online.

The ICO have a help line you could call, 0303 123 1113, or view online advice at https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/advice-for-small-organisations/72-hours-how-to-respond-to-a-personal-data-breach/.