 The UK Government and the Chancellor have set out a package of temporary measures to support public services, people and businesses through this period of disruption caused by COVID-19.
This includes actions to support businesses including:
If you need help with your applications for government grants, loans and allowances as described above then as authorised HMRC agents and expert tax accountants Tax Affinity Accountants are available to support your business at this critical time. Urgently contact us by clicking here and we will use our expertise to support your business through this difficult time. Support for businesses through the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme Under the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme, all UK employers are able to access support to continue paying part of their employees’ salary for those employees that would otherwise have been laid off during this crisis. Eligibility All UK businesses are eligible. How to access the scheme You will need to:
If your business needs short term cash flow support, you may be eligible for a Coronavirus Business Interruption Loan. Support for businesses through deferring VAT and Income Tax payments Government will support businesses by deferring Valued Added Tax (VAT) payments for 3 months. If you’re self-employed, Income Tax payments due in July 2020 under the Self-Assessment system will be deferred to January 2021. VATFor VAT, the deferral will apply from 20 March 2020 until 30 June 2020. Eligibility All UK businesses are eligible. How to access the scheme This is an automatic offer with no applications required. Businesses will not need to make a VAT payment during this period. Taxpayers will be given until the end of the 2020 to 2021 tax year to pay any liabilities that have accumulated during the deferral period. VAT refunds and reclaims will be paid by the government as normal. Income Tax For Income Tax Self-Assessment, payments due on the 31 July 2020 will be deferred until the 31 January 2021. Eligibility If you are self-employed you are eligible. How to access the scheme This is an automatic offer with no applications required. No penalties or interest for late payment will be charged in the deferral period. HMRC have also scaled up their Time to Pay offer to all firms and individuals who are in temporary financial distress as a result of Covid-19 and have outstanding tax liabilities. Support for businesses who are paying sick pay to employees Goverment will bring forward legislation to allow small-and medium-sized businesses and employers to reclaim Statutory Sick Pay (SSP) paid for sickness absence due to COVID-19. The eligibility criteria for the scheme will be as follows:
You are eligible for the scheme if:
A rebate scheme is being developed. Further details will be provided in due course once the legalisation has passed. Government websites will contain more details. Support for businesses that pay business ratesBusiness rates holiday for retail, hospitality and leisure businesses Goverment will introduce a business rates holiday for retail, hospitality and leisure businesses in England for the 2020 to 2021 tax year. Businesses that received the retail discount in the 2019 to 2020 tax year will be rebilled by their local authority as soon as possible. Eligibility You are eligible for the business rates holiday if:
There is no action for you. This will apply to your next council tax bill in April 2020. However, local authorities may have to reissue your bill automatically to exclude the business rate charge. They will do this as soon as possible. You can estimate the business rate charge you will no longer have to pay this year using the business rates calculator. Further guidance for local authorities is available in the expanded retail discount guidance. Cash grants for retail, hospitality and leisure businessesThe Retail and Hospitality Grant Scheme provides businesses in the retail, hospitality and leisure sectors with a cash grant of up to £25,000 per property. For businesses in these sectors with a rateable value of under £15,000, they will receive a grant of £10,000. For businesses in these sectors with a rateable value of between £15,001 and £51,000, they will receive a grant of £25,000. Eligibility You are eligible for the grant if:
You do not need to do anything. Your local authority will write to you if you are eligible for this grant. Guidance for local authorities on the scheme will be provided shortly. Any enquiries on eligibility for, or provision of, the reliefs and grants should be directed to the relevant local authority. Find your local authority on Google. Support for businesses that pay little or no business ratesThe government will provide additional Small Business Grant Scheme funding for local authorities to support small businesses that already pay little or no business rates because of small business rate relief (SBBR), rural rate relief (RRR) and tapered releif. This will provide a one-off grant of £10,000 to eligible businesses to help meet their ongoing business costs. Eligibility You are eligible if:
Guidance for local authorities on the scheme will be provided shortly. Any enquiries on eligibility for, or provision of, the reliefs and grants should be directed to the relevant local authority. Find your local authority on Google. Support for businesses through the Coronavirus Business Interruption Loan SchemeA new temporary Coronavirus Business Interruption Loan Scheme, delivered by the British Business Bank, will launch early next week to support primarily small and medium-sized businesses to access bank lending and overdrafts. The government will provide lenders with a guarantee of 80% on each loan (subject to a per-lender cap on claims) to give lenders further confidence in continuing to provide finance to SMEs. The government will not charge businesses or banks for this guarantee, and the Scheme will support loans of up to £5 million in value. Businesses can access the first 12 months of that finance interest free, as government will cover the first 12 months of interest payments. Eligibility You are eligible for the scheme if:
You should talk to your bank or finance provider (not the British Business Bank) as soon as possible and discuss your business plan with them. This will help your finance provider to act quickly once the Scheme has launched. If you have an existing loan with monthly repayments you may want to ask for a repayment holiday to help with cash flow. The scheme will be available from early next week commencing 23 March. Support for larger firms through the COVID-19 Corporate Financing Facility Under the new Covid-19 Corporate Financing Facility, the Bank of England will buy short term debt from larger companies. This will support your company if it has been affected by a short-term funding squeeze, and allow you to finance your short-term liabilities. It will also support corporate finance markets overall and ease the supply of credit to all firms. Eligibility All UK businesses are eligible. How to access the schemeThe scheme will be available early in week beginning 23 March 2020. The Government will provide information on how to access the scheme soon - keep an eye on their website updates. More information is available from the Bank of England website. Support for businesses paying tax: Time to Pay serviceAll businesses and self-employed people in financial distress, and with outstanding tax liabilities, may be eligible to receive support with their tax affairs through HMRC’s Time To Pay service. These arrangements are agreed on a case-by-case basis and are tailored to individual circumstances and liabilities. Eligibility You are eligible if your business:
If you’re worried about a future payment, call HMRC nearer the time. Insurance Businesses that have cover for both pandemics and government-ordered closure should be covered, as the government and insurance industry confirmed on 17 March 2020 that advice to avoid pubs, theatres etc is sufficient to make a claim as long as all other terms and conditions are met. Insurance policies differ significantly, so businesses are encouraged to check the terms and conditions of their specific policy and contact their providers. Most businesses are unlikely to be covered, as standard business interruption insurance policies are dependent on damage to property and will exclude pandemics. If you need help with your applications for government grants, loans and allowances as described above then as authorised HMRC agents and expert tax accountants Tax Affinity Accountants are available to support your business at this critical time. Urgently contact us by clicking here and we will use our expertise to support your business through this difficult time. By Anni Khan at Tax Affinity Accountants Tax Affinity Accountants are experts in Tax and Accountancy. Based in Worcester Park and Kingston upon Thames and Epsom they are considered in the Industry to be expert business accountants and tax advisors for small and medium sized businesses (SME's). Helping and supporting limited company owners and self employed people throughout the UK, they regularly help clients grow their business providing tailored advice and support. Their support has been considered invaluable by many clients and key to their success. For more information visit www.taxaffinity.com. To read more interesting articles like this visit www.taxaffinity.com/blog. Please feel free to comment and share this with your friends.
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 With the UK now officially leaving the EU, small and medium sized business owners need to put plans and procedures in to place to ensure their business carries on with no problems. Research show that unfortunately the vast majority of SME business owners continue to bury their heads in the sand and ignore the potential ticking time bomb.
Below is a short check list of what you may need to do:
By Anni Khan at Tax Affinity Accountants Tax Affinity Accountants are experts in Tax and Accountancy. Based in Worcester Park and Kingston upon Thames and Epsom they are considered in the Industry to be expert business accountants and tax advisors for small and medium sized businesses (SME's). Helping and supporting limited company owners and self employed people throughout the UK, they regularly help clients grow their business providing tailored advice and support. Their support has been considered invaluable by many clients and key to their success. For more information visit www.taxaffinity.com. To read more interesting articles like this visit www.taxaffinity.com/blog. Please feel free to comment and share this with your friends.  Branch in Worcester Park Changes to UK Income tax rates changes for 19/20 from 5th April 2019:
Personal allowance: Up to £12,500, Tax 0% Basic rate £12,501 to £50,000, Tax 20% Higher rate £50,001 to £150,000, Tax 40% Additional rate Over £150,000, Tax 45% Allowances: There are many other changes with tax allowances such as Annual Investment Allowance claimable rising to £200,000 per annum. Dividend tax rates: The tax-free dividend allowance is £2,000 Basic-rate taxpayers pay 7.5% on dividends Higher-rate taxpayers pay 32.5% on dividends Additional-rate taxpayers pay 38.1% on dividends. Corporation Tax: Rate remains at 19% Directors Loans: If loaned amount exceeds £10,000 at any point during the year then 2.5% nominal interest on the whole amount plus Class 1A National Insurance contributions (13.8%), and may need to be reported on your P11D As market leaders and experts in Tax and accounting for business, there are of course many other changes as well and these we regularly advise and update our clients as and when the tax rules change. If you would like to become a client and receive this support and updates - contact us today. By Anni Khan at Tax Affinity Accountants Tax Affinity Accountants are experts in Tax and Accountancy. Based in Worcester Park and Kingston upon Thames and Espom they are considered in the Industry to be expert accountants and tax advisors for small businesses. Helping and supporting contractors and self employed people throughout the UK, they regularly help clients grow their business providing tailored advice. For more information visit www.taxaffinity.com. To read more interesting articles like this visit www.taxaffinity.com/blog. Please feel free to comment and share this with your friends.  As the dust settles after Chancellors October Budget 2018. We felt nearly all of the news coverage by journalists had presented little or no perspective specifically for the self employed and small and medium sized businesses. So to help below is another one of our famous main points lists, because lifes to short to waffle :
By Anni Khan at Tax Affinity Accountants Tax Affinity Accountants are experts in Tax and Accountancy. With branches in Surbiton , Worcester Park , Kingston upon Thames , Cheam and Epsom they are considered in the Industry to be expert accountants and tax advisors for small businesses. Helping and supporting business throughout the UK, they regularly help clients grow their business providing tailored advice and support. For more information visit www.taxaffinity.com. To read more interesting articles like this visit www.taxaffinity.com/blog. Please feel free to comment and share this with your friends.  To understand its importance, it is necessary to look at the scale of the matter with regards to small and medium sized businesses (SME’s).
In the UK, there are some 5.7m SME’s, which account for almost the whole of the private sector firms and 60% of total UK private sector employment. SME’s also account for 73% of all net private sector job creation in the UK. Therefore, SME’s have significant implications for the economy and anything that can effect SME’s is very important. SME’s need to be proactive and prudent as they prepare for BREXIT – deal or no deal. While some business know how they will be affected, and what will be the consequences. Many do not have the time to spare to look at this and seriously lack any plan of action of how to deal with and overcome weaknesses that may affect their business. This short article will focus on the most important aspects of leaving the EU without a deal for small businesses.
There are more questions than answers regarding impact of Brexit available yet. Ever lingering uncertainty and heightened anxiety in the business world in awash in the news at the moment. In any case, costs and delays relating to customs and trade are expected to increase in general. And these will affect all businesses and consumers. Some businesses may see their business grow and will look for new opportunities, but many are likely to lose out, if they do not plan ahead and manage their competitive position. By Awais at Tax Affinity Accountants in Epsom, Surrey Tax Affinity Accountants are experts in Tax and Accountancy. With branches in Surbiton , Worcester Park , Kingston upon Thames , Cheam and Epsom they are considered in the Industry to be expert accountants and tax advisors for small businesses. Helping and supporting business throughout the UK, they regularly help clients grow their business providing tailored advice and support. For more information visit www.taxaffinity.com. To read more interesting articles like this visit www.taxaffinity.com/blog. Please feel free to comment and share this with your friends.  Tax Affinity Accountants is pleased to announce that we have been awarded the Best Business of 2017, and have been recognised as one of the Top Service providers in our field of expertise by an Independent reviewing panel. A proud member of the Federation of Business this award was external to the FSB and a surprise award.
Independently recognised Our Worcester Park branch was commended for providing a consistently high quality service in our area of business (Tax and Accounting). The independent review team reviewed Tax Affinity Accountants using a 50-Point Inspection which included everything from checking reputation, history, complaints, ratings, satisfaction, trust and the cost to the general public. In short overall excellence. Unexpected review As you can image this has been a very pleasant surprise as we did not even know we were being independently reviewed and did nothing different from what we normally do. We were simply providing the best service we can as normal for every member of the public who approaches us for advice and support. Appreciation We would like to thank all of our customers for allowing us to be part of their lives and letting us help and support them and their businesses. We enjoy helping every self employed person and feel immense sense of pride and happiness when we see our clients businesses expand and grow. In some cases we have seen you guys start from absolutely nothing to a multi million pound turnover within a couple of years. Understanding all the hard work, and long hours it takes for each self employed owner to make their business a success. We have always been there to help and support you and congratulate you on your hard fought success. This award is also recognition for all the staff at Tax Affinity Accountants for going the extra mile and ensuring clients are 110% satisfied. Their long hours worked and late finishes to ensure each clients work is done on time and as tax efficiently as possible means this a reward for their hard work. And finally, we would like to thank the reviewers for their glowing recommendation and wish them the very best for the future as well. By Andrew Khan at Tax Affinity Accountants Tax Affinity Accountants are experts in Tax and Accountancy. With branches in Worcester Park, Kingston upon Thames, Cheam, and Surbiton they are considered in the Industry to be expert accountants and tax advisors for small businesses. Helping and supporting companies, contractors and self employed people throughout the UK, they regularly help clients with their payroll and pension. And help grow their business by providing tailored advice. For more information visit www.taxaffinity.com. To read more interesting articles like this visit www.taxaffinity.com/blog. Please feel free to comment and share this with your friends.  There is a lot of confusion with work place pensions and we are regularly being asked by employers to explain the process and answers questions they have. So to help, we have compiled a short list of questions and their brief answers below:
What is Work Place Pensions? A work place pension is a new compulsory government scheme to lighten the burden upon the state pension. It is part of the process of extending the retirement age and pushing away some financial responsibility onto employers away from the state. It is another way that employees contribute to a pension scheme separate from just the normal national insurance contributions to a state pension. The work place pension is arranged by an employer and they and you have to both contribute into if you decide to opt in. What is auto enrolment? Automatic enrolment to gives it full name, is the the compulsory way the Government has forced employers to set up a company pension scheme for employees. As the name suggest it makes it compulsory for an employer to automatically enrol all their eligible workers on their PAYE into a company pension scheme. What is the staging date? This is the date that the automatic enrolment duties begin. the staging date for an employer is worked out by the number of employees on their payroll (PAYE) based on information HMRC holds. The staging date has been set in law and is the date an employer needs to make sure their automatic enrolment duties have started. Which employees have to be on a work place pension? Only those employees that are over 22 years old and earn more that £10,000 per tax year, need to be enrolled on the work place pension. Anyone earning less than £10,000 a year on your PAYE does not have to be on the work place pension. How does is it work? Its like a normal company pension scheme, only difference is that the Government adds a little bit to it as well. An employer has to register and then choose a pension provider and then deduct a minimum of 2% (on a scale) from the employees wages each time a payslips is produced. The employer then adds an equivalent percentage (up to a maximum threshold) and then pays both the employees and employers pension payments to the pension company each pay date. The Government then tops this up with a lesser percentage. The total sits in a pension account for the employee until they reach retirement age and can then receive the pension payments at the required retirement age. Can employers and employees opt out? All employers have to register and be compliant with their legal obligations. But both directors and employees can 'opt out' of the work place pension scheme if they wish. If an employee wants to opt out then they need to fill in and sign an 'opt out' form and hand this to their employer. What are the costs? For an employee: Minimum 0.8% of an employees ‘qualifying earnings’, rising over time to 4% by April 2019 For an employer: Minimum 1% of your employees ‘qualifying earnings’, rising over time to 3% by April 2019 What is paid by the Government: 0.2% of your employees ‘qualifying earnings’, rising over time to 1% by April 2019 Plus the employer may have to pay a management charge to the pension company for managing the company pension scheme (varies with each company). And / or for the employees an annual pension management charge of 0.3% of their retirement pot, and a 1.8% charge from each payment that is made into an employees retirement pot. What is the earlier age an employee can start to get their pension paid to them? This differs from one pension company to the next and depends on the pension company used by the employer, but most pensions can start payout from aged 55 which is a lot lower than the state pension age and plans by the Government to raise the pension age further in the future. At Tax Affinity Accountants we are already helping hundreds of employers with their Work Place Pensions. Guiding them so they can make the most financially efficient strategy and plan for their company. If you would like help with this then get in touch and we would be happy to help. By Anni Khan at Tax Affinity Accountants Tax Affinity Accountants are experts in Tax and Accountancy. With branches in Worcester Park, Kingston upon Thames, Cheam, and Surbiton they are considered in the Industry to be expert accountants and tax advisors for small businesses. Helping and supporting companies, contractors and self employed people throughout the UK, they regularly help clients with their payroll and pension. And help grow their business by providing tailored advice. For more information visit www.taxaffinity.com. To read more interesting articles like this visit www.taxaffinity.com/blog. Please feel free to comment and share this with your friends.  If you work for the NHS or for Local Government and you are a contractor then you will have been notified that there will be changes coming in as of April 2017. We are increasingly being asked the same question by many clients who are confused and have not been advised correctly by their recruitment agnecy or end client. So we have compiled an easy bullet point guide below:
For a vast majority of contractors this means the recruitment agency or NHS / Council paying you has to decide how to pay you after April 2017. They may opt for the safest course of action / most profitable for them which may not be financially beneficial for you. And increasingly we are seeing a knee jerk reaction by most NHS and Council Management staff and recruitment Agencies is to incorrectly lable everyone the same even when HMRC does not say this in their rules. The vast majority of NHS and Council Management staff and recruitment Agencies are wrongly saying everyone is inside the scope for IR35 just because they cannot be bothered to work out who is and who isn't and they do not care if a person pays more tax than is really due. So have at look below at the correct options as per HMRC, that all contractors have in all ongoing negotiations:
By Anni Khan at Tax Affinity Accountants Tax Affinity Accountants are experts in Tax and Accountancy. Based in Worcester Park and Kingston upon Thames they are considered in the Industry to be expert accountants and tax advisors for small businesses. Helping and supporting business throughout the UK, they regularly help clients grow their business providing tailored advice. For more information visit www.taxaffinity.com. To read more interesting articles like this visit www.taxaffinity.com/blog. Please feel free to comment and share this with your friends.  Why go Limited?
We have all heard about IT contractors and consultants working through a limited company but so many more people could be saving themsleves a lot of tax also, just working this way. And as we get asked this question all the time, we've compiled a helpful list below: 1. If you are earning more than £43,000 a year then financially working through a limited company means your will pay less tax. Because the corporation tax rate is currently 20% and will fall 1% each year by 2020 dropping down to 17%, far lower than the basic 20% personal tax rate and much lower than the 40% higher rate due after £43,000. 2. A limited company means you have limited liablility and are legally seperate from your company and safer from any legal issues that may arise in the future. 3. It sounds much more professional if you are limited company to prospective clients and adds much needed credibility when working in most industry sectors. 4. You can sell shares in your company to investors and raise funding if required by approaching lenders for finance. 5. Protecting your business and brand name, a limited company registered at Companies House UK gives you the legal right to prevent the same name being used by any other business. 6. Pensions can be paid as an expense from your limited company. A big tax advantage over a self employed / sole trader business. 7. Selling a limited company, when you want to retire or move on, is far easier because it has physical presence and usually worth much more than a sole trader business. By Anni Khan at Tax Affinity Accountants Tax Affinity Accountants are experts in Tax and Accountancy. Based in Worcester Park and Kingston upon Thames they are considered in the Industry to be expert accountants and advisors for small businesses. Helping and supporting business throughout the UK, they regularly help clients grow their business providing tailored advice. For more information visit www.taxaffinity.com. To read more interesting articles like this visit www.taxaffinity.com/blog. Please feel free to comment and share this with your friends.  Reports have emerged that the abnormally large number, more than double the normal amount of companies were 'wound-up' in March 2016. It seems many company directors decided to act in advance of the changes to the tax rules that were introduced in April 2016.
From the 6th of April 2016 all directors in UK that are winding up a solvent company are now not allowed to claim entrepreneurs’ relief from the capital gains tax due on any gains, if they continue to work in the same line of business for the next two years. HMRC introduced theses changes to patch up a loop hole that allowed people to avoid income tax by saving up retained profits in a company, then winding it up. To pay a greatly reduced rate of Capital gains Tax (CGT) before starting up with a new company in the same line of work. Some industries had become so notorious for doing this that HMRC had to step in an stop the ability for everyone. The question of how many of these wound up businesses owners have already registered new companies doing exactly the same work again and how many were genuine cases may never be answered. But from our experience and perspective it certainly looks like the majority was for tax reasons. Entrepreneurs relief on capital gains tax allows tax to be charged at 10% rather than the higher standard rate and solvent liquidations accounted for 66% of all liquidations in March 2016, compared to an average of 35% over the previous two financial years. By Anni Khan at Tax Affinity Accountants Tax Affinity Accountants are experts in Tax and Accountancy. Based in Worcester Park and Surbiton they are considered in the Industry to be experts accountants for small businesses. Helping and supporting business throughout the UK, they regularly help new and established businesses to succeed. For more information visit www.taxaffinity.com. To read more interesting articles like this visit www.taxaffinity.com/blog. Please feel free to comment and share this with your friends. |
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