As you know, as one of the areas most forward thinking firm of accountants, we are committed to helping local businesses succeed. A key part of that success, of course, is the support and service you get from your bank. So, to help make sure that local businesses – including yours – get everything they […]
Good Governance is Good for Business!
Good governance is not about making the right decisions but about ensuring there is a good decision-making process used in the business. In a large enterprise, the management board will have a team who are charged with ensuring the firm adheres to the principles of good corporate governance as is expected of a large organisation. […]
Increased Contributions for Workplace Pensions in 2018
Auto-enrolment of staff in workplace pension schemes now applies to even the smallest of employers, although there are exclusions. The current minimum contributions are 1% from the employer and 1% from the employee but these limits are scheduled to increase to 2% and 3% respectively from 6 April 2018. The contributions will then increase to […]
New Restriction for those in Pension drawdown
One of the measures affecting pensions announced in the Spring 2017 Budget that was not included in the first Finance Act, concerns a new £4,000 pension input limit for those who are drawing income from their money purchase pension fund. The new flexible drawdown rules introduced from 6 April 2015 has allowed those with money […]
Changes to Pension Tax Relief in the Budget?
There is again speculation about further restrictions to tax relief on pensions in the Chancellor’s Autumn Budget. With the Chancellor looking to increase tax revenues without increasing tax rates, a raid on pension savings is an easy target as the cost of pension tax relief is estimated to be in excess of £35 billion a […]
HMRC beat Glasgow Rangers in supreme court
A scheme using Employee Benefit Trusts (EBTs) as a means of remunerating directors and staff has been defeated by HMRC in a recent Supreme Court case. Such schemes had been used by many employers to avoid PAYE and national insurance contributions (NICs) and involved complicated trust structures and “loans” to the employees. The Supreme Court […]
What do future leaders look like?
True leadership skills must be learned and practiced before they become second nature. So what do future leaders look like and how can you help them to develop their skills? Some members of your team will be high performers but that doesn’t necessarily mean that they will be natural leaders. An individual’s past performance is […]
Thinking of Winding up your Company??
Up until 6 April last year, the distribution of cash to shareholders on the winding up of a trading company by a liquidator, was usually taxed as a capital gain, potentially taxed at just 10% with the benefit of entrepreneurs’ relief. However, last year’s Finance Act introduced a targeted anti-avoidance rule that may tax such […]
Splitting the new income of Married Couples
Where a married couple hold savings accounts and other investments in joint names, the income from those investments is split 50:50 for tax purposes, unless there is an election to allocate the income in accordance with their beneficial interests. This is particularly important where the couples’ marginal tax rates are different now that there are […]