Hancock & Hastings Accountants Dunstable

10/09/2026

This is one of those areas where the line between business and personal matters.

If you travel somewhere for a genuine business reason, such as a conference, networking event or client meeting, the qualifying business costs may be allowable.

But extending the trip into a family holiday doesn’t automatically make the extra costs deductible too.
Your partner’s travel, family meals, extra accommodation and additional days away are still personal costs unless they meet the normal business expense rules.

Social media can sometimes make tax planning sound like there’s a clever workaround for everything.

In reality, the safest approach is usually much simpler: claim what genuinely belongs to the business and keep the rest separate.

If you’re planning a trip that mixes work and personal time, it’s worth checking the position before you book everything through the company.

07/09/2026

Making small talk with your accountant could pay off 😂

Ask how they are. Tell them about your weekend. Mention that little treat you were about to buy
yourself, along with: “My mate reckons this could save me loads of tax.”

You never know what might come up.

While you’re chatting, your accountant might casually mention that if you’re a director of a small limited company, your company may be able to give you certain small perks worth up to £50 each without you paying tax or National Insurance on them.

There are rules around what qualifies, and directors of close companies have a £300 annual limit, but it’s one of those little tax perks that can easily get missed if nobody ever mentions it.

So yes, ask how your accountant is.

Worst case, you’ve been nice. Best case, you learn how to save yourself a few quid 😂

02/09/2026

We’re really pleased to introduce Nicola, our newest Client Manager 👋

Nicola joins us with plenty of experience looking after clients and keeping all the moving parts of their accounts organised, from day-to-day queries and deadlines to helping with audit queries.

As a Client Manager, she’ll be one of the people our clients can turn to when they need an answer, an update or simply someone who knows what’s going on with their accounts.

As we grow, having the right people around us is really important. People who genuinely care about clients, communicate properly and aren’t afraid to get stuck in.

Nicola is exactly that, and we’re very happy to have her on the team.

Welcome, Nicola 🤍

29/08/2026

If you’ve got a teenager, there’s a fair chance you currently communicate through a mixture of one-word answers, abandoned mugs and “I told you that ages ago” 😂

Unfortunately, HMRC sexpects a slightly more formal update this month.

If your child is 16 to 19 and staying in qualifying education or approved training, you may need to confirm their plans before 31 August so your Child Benefit keeps going.

We’ve broken down:

• Who needs to do something
• What education and training counts
• What doesn’t
• What happens if you miss it
• How to update HMRC

Worth a swipe if September currently feels like one giant pile of forms, passwords and things you’re apparently supposed to already know.

27/08/2026

You buy £50 worth of materials and a £3,000 power tool in the same week.

Both are for the business… But they may not be treated the same way in your accounts.

The materials are usually a normal business expense because they’ll be used up fairly quickly.

The power tool is different.

If you’re going to keep using it for years, your accountant may record it as a business asset instead.

So why does this matter?

Bigger investment pieces can fall under different tax rules, with tax relief often claimed through capital allowances rather than just treating the whole cost as an everyday expense.

You don’t need to know which accounting box it goes in.

But your accountant does need to know exactly what you bought.

So seeing £3,000 at Screwfix on a bank statement doesn’t always tell the full story. Knowing what you bought matters too.

20/08/2026

Lovely to see another brilliant entry for this year’s Junior Wheelie Fantastic competition 🌼

We’re really pleased to be supporting Dunstable in Bloom and sponsoring the competition this year.

Good luck to everyone taking part! 💛

Here’s Dunstable Library’s entry to Dunstable in Bloom’s Wheelie Fantastic competition, this year the theme was a display inspired by 100 years of Winnie the Pooh, right up our street!

The wheelbarrow was planted with marigolds the same colour as Winnie himself, the straw we covered the soil with grew into grass which gave the wheelbarrow a lovely rustic look.

We asked children visiting the library to colour in pictures for the display and our Craft and Coffee group decorated stones depicting many of the services we offer.

It has been a real achievement keeping the wheelbarrow looking good over this very hot summer, thank you Dunstable Library team for your efforts with this 🤩

We welcomed Dunstable in Bloom on Thursday 13th August to judge the display, we will find out the results in September.

Central Bedfordshire Council

20/08/2026

You buy a £20,000 digger on hire purchase.

You put down a £2,000 deposit and spread the rest over monthly payments.

You might assume that, because you’ve only paid £2,000 so far, that’s all you can claim tax relief on. But that isn’t necessarily how it works.

Once you start using the digger in the business, you may be able to claim capital allowances on the cost you’re committed to paying under the hire purchase agreement too, even though most of those payments haven’t left your bank account yet.

The interest charged on the finance is treated separately.

So if you’re buying expensive equipment on hire purchase, make sure your accountant knows about it.

You could be entitled to more tax relief upfront than you realised.

17/08/2026

So yes, your company can pay for your car... But whether that’s a brilliant idea or a very expensive one can depend on the car you choose.

Here’s a simple example 👇

⚡ The potentially very good option ⚡

Your company buys you a £40,000 fully electric car.

For the 2026/27 tax year, the Benefit in Kind rate on a fully electric car is 4%.
That means you’re taxed as though you’ve received an extra £1,600 of income. If you pay tax at 20%, that works out at around £320 of personal tax for the year. If you pay tax at 40%, it would be around £640, and at if you pay tax at 45%, around £720.

🚗 Now imagine the same £40,000 car is a high-emission petrol car 🚗
If it falls into the 37% Benefit in Kind band, you’d be taxed as though you’d received an extra £14,800 of income.

At 20% tax, that’s around £2,960 of personal tax for the year. At 40%, it would be around £5,920, and at 45%, around £6,660.

Same £40,000 price tag. Very different tax bill.

There’s another trap people don’t always realise… 👀

Buying second-hand doesn’t necessarily solve it.

If your company buys a car for £25,000 that originally had a £50,000 list price, the company-car calculation is generally based on its original list price, not the £25,000 you paid for it. Awful, we know!

That’s why “Can my company buy my car?” isn’t really a yes-or-no question. The car itself can completely change the answer.

If you’ve found one you love, speak to us before you sign anything. We can look at the actual car, run through the numbers and tell you what it could really cost you. Much easier than finding out after it’s sitting on your driveway!

13/08/2026

Spent money on new tools?

Your accountant doesn’t just need to know how much you spent.

They need to know what you bought.

A bank transaction might show the supplier and the amount, but that doesn’t always tell us whether you bought everyday supplies, tools, machinery or something else entirely.

That detail matters when we’re deciding how the purchase should be treated in your accounts.

So if you’ve invested in new kit, make sure the invoice or receipt gives your accountant the full picture.