Although we are now at the beginning of a new calendar year we are in the last quarter of the current tax year. Whether you are a business person, property landlord or pay significant amounts of tax as an employed or retired person there is now a short window of opportunity to examine your likely […]
Salaried members of LLPs
HMRC published the draft Finance Bill 2014 last month. Included were changes to the taxation of certain partnerships. This article discusses the introduction of a new type of partnership member for Limited Liability Partnerships (LLPs) that will commence 6 April 2014: the “salaried member”. The new status has been introduced to counter so-called “disguised employment” […]
New year tax changes 2014
In his Autumn Statement last month George Osborne announced a number of measures to help businesses grow and support families with cost of living pressures. Here’s a quick round up of the changes you can expect: For growing businesses: To help business grow and create jobs and to provide help for the high street, the […]
Nothing better to do
HMRC have revealed that 1,566 UK tax payers filed their 2013 self-assessment tax returns on Christmas day. Are we to take this as evidence that the “bah humbug” mentality is alive and well in the UK? In order to file their returns these reluctant revellers will have needed to switch on their computer, as the […]
Points to Consider When Setting a Marketing Strategy
Your marketing strategy consists of the things that you do in your business to make the phone ring. Each technique requires different combinations of financial and human resources. Here are a few pointers on which marketing decisions to improve the return on marketing investment. Market research Forward-thinking businesses conduct market research to identify market trends […]
Setting Effective KPIs
Setting goals and a strategy for your business is important. However you then need to measure how the business is performing in order to understand if the firm is moving forward and is on track to achieve its goals. As such it is necessary to set Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). However many business owners and […]
HMRC criticised for soft peddling
In a recent report prepared by the Public Accounts Committee HMRC was accused of pursuing smaller businesses with more vigour than larger concerns. HMRC was also criticised for under estimating the amount of uncollected tax, over estimating amounts due from the holders of Swiss bank accounts, and collecting tax credit debt. A summary of the […]
Communication & Performance Management
Good communication is key in any business and no more so than when it comes to performance management in a firm. Issues relating to staff members and the performance of their duties arise often when running a business (or a department for that matter). Whether it is timekeeping and attendance issues or failing to complete […]
Tax free celebration for Christmas
Most business people are aware that if they keep the “per head” expenditure below £150 for the annual bash, and if they follow the other HMRC guidelines, then there should be no risk that HMRC will seek to treat the payments as a taxable benefit. However, if the cost creeps over £150, to say £200 […]