Update on the changes to the taxation of dividends

20 October 2015 •

Radical reforms to the dividend taxation system were introduced in the July 2015 budget which will take effect from the 6th April 2016. The most important effect is that the effective tax rate will increase by 7.5% across all bands. To illustrate, effective tax rates before, and on or after this date will be as follows;

	Old Regime - Nominal	Old Regime – Effective	New Regime
Basic Rate	10.00%	0.00%	7.50%
Higher Rate	32.50%	25.00%	32.50%
Additional Rate	37.50%	30.60%	38.10%

There are however two favourable changes.

• Firstly the tax credit system is being abolished which means the end of ‘grossing up’. This system is why under the old regime, £9,000 of dividends actually counted as £10,000 for tax purposes. The practical effect of this change is that thresholds and bands will now be approached and crossed more slowly for a given level of physical distribution.
• Secondly there is going to be a new tax free £5,000 dividend allowance which means that the first £5,000 of dividend income is effectively zero rated within whichever band it happens to sit.

Illustration 1

How someone with gross income of £100,000 will be affected

Say that a person with an owner managed business kept their gross income at £100,000 (so as not to lose their personal allowance). The old typical setup would have been to draw a salary of £8,000 with a net (i.e. ‘actual’) dividend of £82,800 (which translates to £92,000 grossed up – i.e. for tax).

We can see that in this case that the person would be £4780.37 worse off.

Illustration 2

Under the new regime however, the person might want to increase their dividends by £9,200 as with the abolition of ‘grossing up’, drawing £92,000 dividends would simply count as £92,000 for tax purposes. Therefore the person could physically receive £100,000 overall without starting to lose their personal allowance.

We can see that in this scenario the person would be £3,818.15 worse off. This is however a lower differential than the previous example.

Comparison of overall tax rates

We have developed a spreadsheet system which can test various scenarios, so if you think that these changes could affect you and your business, please call 020 7731 6163 to talk to one of our tax team. You can also download our updated 2015 / 2016 tax card.