Income tax at the rate of 50% will be payable on taxable income over £150,000 with effect from 6th April 2010. In another move to higher income taxpayers, their personal allownace of £6,475 will be taken away at the rate of 50p for every pound of income over £100,000, so that the allowance will disappear altogether when a taxpayer's  income reaches £112,950.

All this makes the normal end-of-tax-year planning even more important this year. Some of the ideas worth considering are:

Bring income forward to before 6 April 2010. Consider how you might legitimately bring forward any income coming to you in the near future into the current tax year (2009/10) so that the top tax rate payable is 40%. That will normally be preferable to receiving income in the 2010/11 tax year, if the new 50% tax rate will apply.

Remuneration and dividends. If you have your own company, consider paying bonuses and dividends to yourself and/or relevant employees before 6th April rather than after. Of course, earlier bonuses will also bring forward PAYE and national insurance contribution liabilities. Dividends received in this tax year are taxable at a top rate of 32.5% in 2010/11, the top rate on dividends is 42.5%.

Husband-wife partnerships and companies. Spouses and civil partners who are in business together may still legitimately divide profits or dividends between themselves so as to favour the lower earner or so that both partners income falls below the £150,000 (or £100,000) threshold. Under the law as it stands, many such arrangements will pass muster, but it is important to get our advice to avoidproblems with HMRC.

Approved share schemes. Consider opening or activating HMRC-approved share and option schemes. They can be very tax efficient and relatively easily established, but it is important to ask our advice on the choice of schemes.

Pension contributions. Tax relief at 40% is currently available on pension contributions for higher rate taxpayers, although certain restrictions have applied since April 2009.

After 6th April 2011, a person with a taxable income over £150,000 will have their tax relief restricted. Therefore, for those affected by these rules it could be worth making pension contributions that qualify for full relief in the current tax year. (See 'Pensions and tax relief').

Capitla gains. A significant gap has opened up between the current tax rate on capital gains of 18% and the top income tax rate that will soon be 50%. An increase in the tax rate that will soon be 50%. An increase in the tax rate on gains is widely expected and so it might be worth considering making taxable disposals before 6th April 2010 rather than waiting until the new tax year. As usual, at the very least it is generally worth making disosals to use the annual exemption - which for 2009/10 is  £10,000 per taxpayer.

Under the new rules, a car that emits no more than 160/km will normaly be a 'main-rate car' and qualify for the full 20% annual writing-down allowance, regardless of price. Cars emitting more than 160g/lm qualify for 10% a year allowances only, but again on the full price of the car. Cars that are more than eight years old (those first registered before 1 March 2001) also qualify for the full 20% allowance, regardless of their actual emissions figure.]

An equally crude and simple rule now applies to leased cars. In place of the previous formula scaling down the allowable rental deduction for cars costing more than £12,000, 'main-rate cars' now qualify for full rental deductions, whereas for other cars, only 85% of the rental is deductable.

The old rules continue to apply for a five year transitional period to cars ought before 6 April 2009 (or 1 April 2009 for companies). 

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