In-depth guidance on GP tax planning, NHS pension complexities, locum tax returns, and private practice structures. Written specifically for medical professionals navigating UK tax regulations.
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View guideIncorporation & Company Structures
A numbers-led decision guide for doctors and consultants weighing whether to incorporate their private practice: sole trader versus limited company on 2026/27 figures, the NHS pension interaction, IR35 and spouse shareholding, extraction strategy, when not to incorporate, and worked examples at £40k, £80k and £150k of private income.
Incorporation & Company Structures
Consultants who draw cash from their private-practice company without declaring a formal dividend create an overdrawn director's loan account, which triggers a section 455 charge at the dividend upper rate: 33.75% on loans made in 2025/26 and 35.75% on loans made on or after 6 April 2026. The charge is temporary and repaid under s.458 once the loan is cleared, but the relief is deferred by up to a year, not instant. This guide covers the rate change, the beneficial-loan benefit in kind on balances above £10,000, the anti-avoidance rules that block repay-and-redraw, and the NHS pension angle that applies whenever money moves through a medical company.
Incorporation & Company Structures
A family investment company (FIC) is a bespoke private limited company holding investments rather than running a medical practice. For a high-earning consultant or GP with income already in the additional-rate band and surplus wealth beyond the NHS pension, it can shelter retained income at corporation-tax rates of 19-25% instead of 45% personal tax and keep future growth outside the estate. This guide explains the tax, share classes, IHT planning, and the settlements, minor-children and BADR traps that mean a FIC suits only doctors with genuine scale and a long-run family-wealth goal.
Private Practice
Medico-legal and expert-witness report fees are self-employed trading income for doctors, taxed on top of NHS salary with one defining VAT feature: the reports are standard-rated, not exempt, because their primary purpose is to help a court, insurer or solicitor make a decision rather than to treat the patient. This guide covers the tax calculation (including the 60% personal-allowance taper trap for consultants between £100,000 and £125,140), why the purpose test makes reports standard-rated, how the £90,000 VAT registration threshold works when only non-exempt turnover counts, allowable expenses, a worked example for 2026/27 and the sole-trader versus company question.
Incorporation & Company Structures
Once you have a private medical company, the recurring question is how to get money out of it efficiently. This guide covers the 2026/27 salary and dividend split: why single-director companies typically pin salary near the £5,000 secondary threshold, what the new 35.75% upper dividend rate means for higher earners, and why employer pension contributions are often the sharpest lever of all.
Incorporation & Company Structures
Surplus cash building up in a private-practice company is not automatically efficient. This guide sets out the five main deployment routes, from employer pension contributions (usually the sharpest tool for high-earning consultants) to investing in-company and taking capital via an MVL, with a worked comparison on £100,000 of surplus, the BADR trading-status trap, and the NHS pension position that cuts across every option.
GP Practice Management
The Additional Roles Reimbursement Scheme is widely misread as free money for extra staff, when it is a reimbursement of defined employment costs up to a capped maximum, with real tax and VAT consequences for whoever does the employing. This guide takes the practical employer view: which roles are reimbursable, how the cap works, who can legally employ the staff and how each model changes the payroll, the NHS pension, the Employment Allowance and, most importantly, the VAT supply-of-staff question. It closes with how the reimbursement should sit in the accounts.
GP Tax & Accounts
When a salaried or sessional GP is offered a partnership, the practical question is what you actually pay to come in, and what that money buys. This page isolates the capital buy-in itself: a contribution into the partnership capital accounts for your share of net assets, working capital and any premises share. It explains parity (working up from a reduced share to a full, equal profit share over an agreed period), and how the figure is set and valued, namely on net assets per the accounts and a surveyor or District Valuer basis for premises, never an NHS goodwill multiple. It is the money-and-mechanics page for joining, not a broad pros-and-cons of partnership.
GP Tax & Accounts
NHS GP practice goodwill cannot be sold and has not been saleable since 1 April 2004. This guide explains the prohibition, why it exists, what actually changes hands on a partnership buy-in or buy-out, the one private exception, and why the dental goodwill playbook does not apply to GPs.
GP Practice Management
A dispensing GP practice supplies medicines directly to eligible patients and earns an income stream most practices never see. This guide explains how dispensing income is generated through drug reimbursement and dispensing fees, how it sits in the practice accounts as turnover with a matching drug-purchase cost and stock, how it is taxed as trading income, and the unusual VAT position where NHS dispensed drugs are zero-rated, personally administered drugs are exempt and private-prescription drugs are standard-rated.
GP Practice Management
Beyond the core Global Sum and QOF, a GP practice can earn a long tail of extra income from enhanced services: nationally directed schemes (DES) the practice can opt into, and locally commissioned services (LES) that vary by area and ICB. This guide explains what these streams are, who commissions them and how to weigh whether a service is worth signing up to, then covers the part competitors skip: how the income is taxed as ordinary practice trading profit and where the VAT line falls.
GP Tax & Accounts
Most GPs do not have the buy-in capital sitting in cash, so they borrow it, and the good news is that the interest on a loan taken out to buy into or contribute capital to a partnership qualifies for income tax relief. This page explains how a GP finances a buy-in (a partnership-capital loan, building capital from undrawn profit, or a mix), the tax relief on the loan interest (how it works, the conditions, the cap on income tax reliefs and how it is claimed), and the cash flow of servicing the loan against partnership drawings. It is the funding-and-relief page that sits underneath the buy-in and the due diligence.
GP Tax & Accounts
Two GPs can work side by side under very different legal arrangements. In an expense-sharing arrangement each GP is effectively a separate practitioner sharing premises and staff costs; in a full partnership the GPs pool and share profit. This guide explains the difference, the legal test that decides which one you are in, and the tax, accounting and liability consequences of each.
GP Tax & Accounts
A GP partner draws a steady monthly amount but is taxed on something different: their full allocated profit share, whether or not they drew it as cash. This page is the practical, cash-flow-first treatment of that gap: why the two figures diverge, the timing mismatch it creates (drawings now, tax bill later), and a workable method for reserving for income tax, Class 4 National Insurance, payments on account and superannuation, so the January and July bills never come as a shock.
GP Tax & Accounts
Basis period reform quietly changed how every GP partnership is taxed: partnerships now pay tax on the profit arising in the tax year itself rather than on the profit of the accounting year ending in it. This is the dedicated deep-dive for a GP practice: the move to the tax-year basis from 2024/25, the one-off 2023/24 transition year, how overlap relief was used up, the option to spread the transition profit over five years, and the apportionment a practice faces if its accounting date is not 31 March or 5 April.
GP Practice Management
When partners leave a GP partnership faster than new ones join, liability for the surgery does not shrink to match. A leasehold practice can leave the remaining partners holding the whole lease, and an owner-occupier practice can leave departing partners unable to sell their premises share. This guide explains how the last man standing risk arises, the protections that exist, and how the partnership deed and ownership structure are used to manage it.
GP Tax & Accounts
Most GP partnerships run a mutual assessment period, a trial stretch during which the incoming GP and the existing partners decide whether to offer and accept parity or permanency. This page explains what that period is, and, the substance of the page, the financial due diligence an incoming GP should do during it: read the accounts, understand the premises position and last-man-standing risk, check the NHS contract and list size, read the partnership deed, understand drawings versus profit, and surface any outstanding liabilities. It is the look-before-you-leap page for joining a partnership, framed around the trial period that gives you the window to do it.
GP Practice Management
A GP practice is paid for its NHS work through a monthly PCSE statement, but the amounts are not always right: Global Sum can lag a list-size or weighting change, QOF and enhanced-services payments can be late or short, and premises figures can drift. This guide explains how to read the PCSE Online statement, how to reconcile each line against the Statement of Financial Entitlements and the practice's contract, and how to spot, query and recover an underpayment, with the discipline tied back to accurate trading profit and the partners' shares.
GP Tax & Accounts
When two GP practices merge, the partners' first questions are about the accounts, the capital accounts, the contracts, the premises and the tax. This guide works through each strand and the pivotal income-tax question of whether the merger is a cessation and recommencement or a continuation, with the HMRC test and a checklist to settle with your accountant.
GP Practice Management
Alongside its NHS contract a GP practice earns a long tail of private and non-NHS income from medicals, reports, travel clinics, minor surgery and certification work. This guide maps those streams, explains how each is taxed as practice trading income on the partners' profit share, and draws the VAT line clearly: genuine clinical care is exempt, but third-party-decision reports, certain medicals and purely cosmetic work are standard-rated, with the £90,000 threshold and partial exemption that follow.
GP Practice Management
When a GP partnership owns its surgery, the NHS reimburses the cost of providing those premises through notional rent, the legacy cost rent scheme, or improvement grants. This guide explains how each route works, who sets the figure, and the tax point practices most often get wrong: that the reimbursement is taxable income to whoever owns the building, set against the loan interest and running costs.
GP Practice Management
A GP partnership choosing between renting its surgery and owning it is making a tax decision as much as a clinical one. Ownership unlocks notional rent, asset growth and capital allowances, but brings SDLT on purchase, illiquidity and a CGT bill on the way out. This guide walks the whole own-versus-rent tax picture, from SDLT in to CGT out, with the capital allowances and the fixtures election in between.
GP Practice Management
Most GP partners draw a profit share but have never seen how the money actually arrives. This guide opens up the engine room of NHS GP income: the Global Sum as the core per-weighted-patient payment, the Carr-Hill formula that turns a raw list into weighted patients, the Statement of Financial Entitlements that governs it, and where GMS, PMS and APMS contracts diverge. It then connects that funding to what a partner takes home, because the Global Sum is practice trading income, not a pay packet.
Incorporation & Company Structures
Moving a private medical practice into a limited company can crystallise a capital gain on the goodwill, even though no cash changes hands. Section 162 incorporation relief defers that gain by rolling it into the base cost of the new shares. This guide explains how the relief works, its conditions, the Finance Act 2026 change that makes it a claimed relief from 6 April 2026, and why the NHS pension trade-off means the tax saving is never the whole story for a doctor.
NHS Pension Planning
The mandatory half of the McCloud remedy is finished. Your 2015 to 2022 service was rolled back to the legacy scheme on 1 October 2023, and the only live decision is the choice you make at retirement. This guide explains what happened automatically, who is eligible and how the tax side is reconciled.
NHS Pension Planning
Since 1 October 2023 a doctor can draw between 20 and 100 percent of their accrued NHS pension while staying in the same job and continuing to build new pension in the 2015 scheme, provided they reduce their pensionable pay or commitment by at least 10 percent. This guide explains the rules, the annual allowance and McCloud interactions, and how it compares with early retirement.
NHS Pension Planning
When a doctor breaches the annual allowance, Scheme Pays lets the NHS pension settle the tax charge in exchange for a permanent reduction in benefits. This guide explains mandatory versus voluntary Scheme Pays, the precise test, the 31 July deadline and how to make and revise an election.
GP Practice Management
A PCN clinical director can be paid in several quite different ways, and the route chosen decides everything that follows: the income tax and National Insurance, whether the pay is NHS pensionable, and even whether VAT bites. This guide sets out the funding, then walks the common payment routes (through a member practice, invoiced from the director's own partnership, via a personal service company, or self-employed direct), and for each one explains the tax treatment and, carefully and with hedging, the pension position. The honest headline is that pensionability is not automatic and depends on the route.
GP Practice Management
Most GP partners know their practice belongs to a primary care network and that money arrives through it, but few have seen how the Network Contract DES actually channels that money or how it lands in the practice accounts. This guide maps the flow end to end: the Network Contract DES as a voluntary Directed Enhanced Service, the named funding streams (core PCN funding, ARRS reimbursement, enhanced access, capacity and access, and the Investment and Impact Fund), the nominated payee that receives the money, and how it is recognised in the practice and the partners' profit share.
GP Practice Management
QOF confuses partners because the cash arrives in two parts and across two financial years: monthly aspiration payments through the year, then an achievement reconciliation after year-end. This guide explains the points-based mechanics, then does the bit competitors skip: how QOF income should be recognised in the practice accounts on an accruals basis, and how it is taxed as ordinary practice trading profit. The aim is a partner who knows why the QOF cash and the QOF profit never match in any one year.
GP Tax & Accounts
Every year a GP partner is handed a bound set of partnership accounts to sign, and often understands very little of what the numbers mean. This is a plain-English reading guide to that document: the profit and loss account, the balance sheet and, the part that confuses partners most, the difference between your capital account (your long-term stake in the practice's net assets) and your current account (the running tally of profit allocated to you, less what you have drawn). The aim is comprehension of the accounts themselves, not a tax tutorial.
GP Tax & Accounts
When a GP partner retires or leaves, two separate things happen: they receive what the partnership owes them (their capital account and any premises share), and their share of the trade ceases for tax. This guide explains what you get back, how the cessation of your notional trade works under the post-reform tax-year basis (and why there is usually no overlap relief left), whether capital gains tax arises on a premises share, and the deed mechanics that keep an exit orderly.
Private Practice
When a doctor sells a genuinely private medical business, capital gains tax applies in full and Business Asset Disposal Relief can cut the rate. This guide walks through the CGT computation, the BADR conditions and limits, and why the rate stepping from 14% to 18% on 6 April 2026 turns disposal timing into a planning decision.
GP Accountant Services
An overview of the accounting services UK doctors, GPs and consultants actually need, from NHS pension annual allowance work to partnership tax, locum IR35 and private income, with the 2026/27 figures that matter and links to the right specialist guide for your situation.
GP Accountant Services
A plain-English guide to self assessment for UK doctors, GPs and consultants for the 2026/27 tax year: who has to file, how to register, the key deadlines, payments on account, Class 4 National Insurance, and how Making Tax Digital for Income Tax changes things from April 2026.
GP Practice Management
Becoming a GP partner brings significant financial changes beyond just income. Understanding the tax, pension, and capital implications is crucial before making the transition.
GP Accountant Services
Looking for a specialist GP accountant in Birmingham? We work with NHS partners, salaried GPs, locums and consultants across the Midlands on practice accounts, NHS pension annual allowance planning and 2026/27 tax.
GP Accountant Services
Looking for a GP accountant in Bristol? We help partners, salaried GPs, consultants and locum doctors across Bristol with NHS pension annual allowance, GP partnership accounts and medical tax compliance for the 2026/27 tax year.
GP Accountant Services
What a GP accountant costs is driven by your structure and complexity, not a one-size fee: practice size, partner numbers, payroll, NHS pension certification and the depth of tax planning you need. This guide explains the factors and the value, so you can compare quotes like for like.
GP Accountant Services
Find an experienced GP accountant in Edinburgh who understands GP partnership accounts, NHS pension annual allowance and the Scottish income tax bands that apply to doctors working across Lothian and the rest of Scotland.
GP Accountant Services
Looking for a specialist GP accountant in Glasgow? Get medical accounting, Scottish income tax planning and NHS pension advice built around GP partners, salaried GPs, locums and consultants.
GP Accountant Services
Specialist GP accountant in Leeds providing medical tax advice, NHS pension annual allowance planning and GP partnership accounting for partners, salaried GPs and locum doctors across Yorkshire.
GP Accountant Services
Looking for a specialist GP accountant in Liverpool? We act for GP partners, salaried GPs, locum doctors and consultants across Merseyside, covering NHS pension annual allowance, profit-share tax returns and private-practice planning at 2026/27 rates.
GP Accountant Services
What a specialist GP accountant in London actually does for practices, partners, salaried GPs and locums, from GMS partnership accounts and the NHS pension annual allowance to self-assessment, VAT and Making Tax Digital, with the 2026/27 figures that matter.
GP Accountant Services
Specialist GP accounting in Manchester for partners, salaried GPs, and locums: NHS pension annual allowance planning, GMS practice accounts, and tax across Greater Manchester, with current 2026/27 figures.
GP Accountant Services
A specialist GP accountant in Newcastle for Tyneside doctors who understands NHS pension annual allowance, GP partnership accounts, premises income and locum tax for the 2026/27 tax year.
GP Accountant Services
A plain-English guide to what a specialist GP and medical accountant does across the full service range, from partnership accounts and NHS pension certificates to tax returns, payroll and incorporation, with links to the detailed guides for each area.
GP Accountant Services
Sheffield GPs, partners and locums need an accountant who understands GP partnerships, NHS pension annual allowance and medical tax. Here is what a specialist Sheffield GP accountant does and how to choose one for 2026/27.
GP Accountant Services
GP finances are complex, involving partnership accounts, NHS pension annual allowance issues, GMS contract income and self-assessment. A specialist GP accountant understands the medical-specific rules a general accountant often misses, and this guide explains what the service covers and why it matters.
GP Practice Management
A complete GP accounting guide covering the SA800 partnership structure, drawings versus profit share, NHS income streams, NHS pension on the accounts, expenses, year-end tax and MTD for UK general practitioners.
GP Practice Management
A software-agnostic guide to GP accounting and bookkeeping tools for UK medical practices. Covers what MTD-compatible digital record-keeping actually requires, how to capture NHS income streams cleanly, and how partnership records should flow from your software to the tax return.
GP Practice Management
A practical guide to GP practice bookkeeping: recording NHS income streams (Global Sum, QOF, enhanced services and PCN funding), separating partner drawings from profit share, allocating practice expenses, and keeping digital records ready for Making Tax Digital.
Incorporation & Company Structures
How corporation tax works for an incorporated GP or medical company in 2026/27: the 19% to 25% rates with marginal relief, the 2026/27 dividend rates, profit extraction, and why company income is never NHS-pensionable.
GP Practice Management
GP financial planning means joining up the NHS pension, your practice or locum income, protection and retirement into one plan. This 2026/27 guide covers the priorities for partners, salaried GPs and locums, and links to the tax deep-dives for the detail.
GP Tax & Accounts
How GPs, salaried doctors, consultants and locums claim use-of-home tax relief. We cover the apportionment basis, which costs qualify, the flat-rate alternatives, and how the rules differ for the self-employed versus employees in 2026/27.
Incorporation & Company Structures
Wondering whether a GP limited company is worth it? This guide weighs the real tax benefits against the NHS pension and contract drawbacks, with 2026/27 dividend and corporation tax figures, so you can decide whether to incorporate.
GP Tax & Accounts
Understanding the tax differences between GP partners and salaried GPs is crucial for career decisions and financial planning. This guide breaks down the key tax implications of each role.
GP Practice Management
How a GP partnership allocates profit decides each partner's tax bill and NHS pension growth, because partners are taxed on their profit share, not their drawings. This guide explains prior shares, the partnership deed, the premises return and the 2026/27 numbers that matter.
GP Tax & Accounts
GP partners are taxed on their profit share, not their drawings, through the partnership return (SA800) and the partnership pages of their personal tax return (SA104). This 2026/27 guide explains how partnership profits flow to tax, Class 4 National Insurance, allowable expenses, capital accounts, the NHS goodwill rules and how partnership profits interact with the NHS pension.
GP Practice Management
What GP practice payroll actually involves: PAYE and RTI for practice staff, workplace pension auto-enrolment alongside the NHS Pension Scheme, employer secondary NIC at 15% above the £5,000 threshold (2026/27), and where partners and locums sit outside payroll.
NHS Pension Planning
How tax relief on NHS pension contributions works for GPs in 2026/27: the tiered employee rates, automatic net pay relief, topping up with AVCs or Added Pension, and where the £60,000 annual allowance fits in.
GP Tax & Accounts
A high-level GP tax planning hub for 2026/27. The main levers (NHS pension, partnership profit share, expenses, incorporating private work, MTD) explained at a glance, each linking to a deeper guide so you can act on the one that matters to you.
GP Tax & Accounts
Comprehensive breakdown of allowable tax deductions for GPs in 2026/27, covering professional fees, indemnity, CPD, mileage, home office and equipment, with notes for partners, salaried GPs and locums.
GP Tax & Accounts
How GPs file self-assessment by role: the partnership SA800, the SA104 partnership pages, the SA103 self-employment pages and the SA100, plus deadlines, payments on account, Class 4 NIC and Making Tax Digital for 2026/27.
GP Practice Management
When a GP practice must register for VAT, why most NHS and private medical care is exempt, the £90,000 threshold, the cosmetic and medico-legal carve-outs, and how partial exemption works for mixed-income practices.
Locum Tax
Locum doctors can claim a wide range of business expenses to reduce their tax bill, from travel between sites and medical indemnity to professional fees and home office costs. This 2026/27 guide sets out exactly what is allowable and the HMRC rules that decide it.
Locum Tax
IR35 (the off-payroll working rules) decides whether a locum doctor working through a personal service company is taxed like an employee. This guide explains who decides your status, what a Status Determination Statement is, the April 2024 PAYE offset, and why a sole-trader locum is outside IR35 entirely.
Locum Tax
Wondering whether to operate through a limited company (a personal service company) as a locum doctor? We weigh the real pros and cons for 2026/27, from IR35 status and dividend tax to the NHS pension you give up.
Locum Tax
Step-by-step guide to filing self assessment as a locum doctor in 2026/27. Covers the SA103 self-employment pages, the 31 January deadline, payments on account, Class 4 NIC at 6% and Making Tax Digital from April 2026.
Locum Tax
A complete 2026/27 guide for UK locum doctors covering how you are taxed, sole trader versus limited company, self-assessment, Class 4 National Insurance, allowable expenses including mileage, and keeping your NHS pension via Locum forms A and B.
Locum Tax
From 6 April 2026 the umbrella reform makes recruitment agencies (and some end clients) jointly and severally liable for an umbrella company's PAYE and National Insurance. We explain what changes for locum doctors, how it differs from the wider umbrella regulation still to come, and how the umbrella, personal service company and agency PAYE routes compare.
Incorporation & Company Structures
A practical, step-by-step guide to incorporating private medical work in the UK: the decision first (private work only, plus the NHS pension trap), then forming the company, transferring the business, banking, VAT, payroll and dividends, and the pitfalls to avoid.
Medical Expenses
UK doctors can claim a wide range of tax-deductible expenses, including the GMC retention fee, medical indemnity, List 3 professional subscriptions, CPD, equipment and business mileage at 55p per mile in 2026/27. How you claim depends on whether you are a GP partner, salaried GP, consultant or locum. This guide is general information, not advice.
NHS Pension Planning
The NHS pension annual allowance limits how much your pension can grow tax free each year. For a defined benefit scheme the test is the growth in your benefits (the pension input amount), not the contributions you pay, which is why high earning doctors are caught even though they never chose to over-contribute.
NHS Pension Planning
Freelance GP locums build NHS pension accrual by completing Locum form A and Locum form B and paying contributions through the PCSE Solo route. This guide explains what each form does, the deadlines that protect your accrual, the contribution tiers, and the mistakes that quietly cost locums years of pension.
NHS Pension Planning
How to work out your tapered NHS pension annual allowance for 2026/27. We walk through threshold income, adjusted income, the £1-for-£2 reduction and the £10,000 floor, with a worked example for high-earning doctors.
NHS Pension Planning
A high earner's strategy guide to cutting NHS pension annual allowance charges: how to use carry forward, when Scheme Pays makes sense, how to manage the taper, and the traps that cost doctors money. General information for UK doctors, GPs and consultants, not personal advice.
GP Accountant Services
Specialist accounting for GPs, consultants, and locum doctors in Nottingham. NHS pension planning, partnership accounts, and medical tax advice for 2026/27.
Private Practice
Most consultants and GPs run an NHS post alongside private work, and the two are taxed under different rules at the same time. This guide explains how PAYE and self-employed private income stack up, which slices are NHS-pensionable, where VAT bites on cosmetic and medico-legal work, and when private income is large enough to justify a company.