Clearview National April 2019 - Issue 209 | Page 90

BUSINESSNEWS
Get the max from your tax
» » WITH ANOTHER TAX
year closing this week, taxpayers
in the UK have been offered
expert guidance on maximising
their various tax-free allowances.
David Redfern, Managing
Director of DSR Tax Claims Ltd
has advice to assist taxpayers in
making the most of the various
tax efficiencies available to them
in the 2018/19 tax year.
He states “Taxpayers are
entitled to a number of tax-free
allowances which allow them
to maximise their tax relief on
investments and savings so it is
essential to good tax planning
to ensure that households make
full use of these allowances where
possible. Individual taxpayers are
allowed to invest up to £20,000
per tax year in an ISA, or a range
of ISAs, with a couple having a
combined allowance of £40,000
between them and these tax-free
savings allowances can’t be carried
over to the following tax year.
This means taxpayers should
investigate whether they are using
their full allowance”.
As with tax-free savings
allowances, pension contributions
are also subject to an annual
tax-free allowance. Redfern
states “Taxpayers are allowed to
save up to £40,000 per tax year
tax-free through private pension
contributions. If you’re not sure
how much you have paid into
your pension during this tax year,
the GOV website has a handy
calculator to allow you to check
whether you have used all of your
personal allowance for any given
tax year.”
Redfern also encouraged
taxpayers to check whether they
are receiving all the tax relief they
are entitled to. He added “If you
are entitled to Marriage Allowance
because either you or your spouse
have earnings below the personal
tax allowance, you can transfer
your unused Marriage Allowance
to the spouse earning above the
personal tax allowance.” Marriage
Allowance can be worth up to
£238 per tax year by allowing the
low-earning spouse to transfer
up to £1,190 of unused personal
allowance to their spouse. It is
open to all couples who are either
married or in a civil partnership
as long as the higher-earning
partner is a basic-rate taxpayer.
Taxpayers were also reminded to
check they were making the most
of their Gift Aid contributions
in order to maximise their tax
relief options, with tax relief on
charitable donations also able to be
backdated for 4 years.
dsrtaxclaims.co.uk
Sick Building Syndrome
» » WITH INDOOR AIR POLLUTION
continuing to impact the health and wellbeing
of UK workers, employers are taking greater
responsibility for the workplace environment
in a bid to limit the effects of sick building
syndrome – situations where employees or
other building occupants experience acute
health and discomfort levels that appear to be
linked to time spent in a building.
A YouGov survey commissioned by the
Building Engineering Services Association
(BESA) reported that almost 70% of office
workers believed poor air quality in their place
of work was having a negative effect on their
day-to-day productivity and well-being*.
“The health impacts of poor outdoor air
quality are well-documented and have been
linked to respiratory tract infections, lung
cancer and chronic obstructive pulmonary
disease. Indoors you’ll find these same
pollutants intermingled with dust, carpet
fibres, fungal spores, cleaning products,
photocopy residues or building materials,
which create quite an unhealthy cocktail of
90 » A PR 2019 » CL EARVI E W- UK . C O M
contaminants that eventually permeate across
the workplace,” said Steven Loughney of
Siemens Building Technologies. “And with
most of us spending 90% or more of our time
indoors it is little wonder that some people
claim work is literally killing them – this
might not be the case, but indoor air pollution
is certainly having a detrimental effect on our
long-term health.”
Air quality improvements can be made
through the deployment of advanced HEPA
and carbon-activated air purifiers to screen
harmful pollutants while air-quality monitors,
sensitive to PM2.5 warn of foreign particles
<2.5 micrometres Ø that are small enough to
travel deep into the lungs. Physical redesigns
of buildings might involve adding ventilation
to take advantage of prevalent winds or
creating windows to exploit aspects that
take advantage of natural light. Converted
older buildings may have issues with heating,
ventilation and air conditioning with access
and power limitations. For complete internal
environmental control, total room automation
solutions offer a fully integrated system
that maintains the perfect environment. A
network of high accuracy self-calibrating
sensors feed real-time information back into
these systems to manage HVAC, lighting and
CO2 levels.
Symptoms of sick building syndrome may
include:
• headaches
• blocked or runny nose
• dry, itchy skin
• dry, sore eyes
• rashes
• tiredness and difficulty concentrating
* www.thebesa.com/news/70-of-office-
workers-complain-about-poor-air-quality/
www.siemens.com