Disbursements VAT case ruling goes against Law Firm

A recent ruling in the first tier tribunal has gone against law firm Brabners, resulting in an HMRC VAT assessment of £68,000 being upheld.  This case should be of significant interest to all law firms providing conveyancing services and recharging fees incurred for property searches.

The case revolves around the treatment of electronic property searches procured from well known provider Searchflow.

Harnessing the Skills of the Younger Generation

Many of us who have or have had children at secondary school will know how it feels to be advising and coaching our young people in their career choices.

This will involve at least a consideration of further education, and we know if that choice is a college or university “out of area”, there is a strong possibility that our young people are likely to gravitate to job opportunities in the central belt or further afield.

Maximise the hidden resource in your business

One of the most pressing challenges for any business leader is to ensure that they have as much information as is required to make the best decisions for their company.

Sadly, “full knowledge” isn’t always possible, and there’s a measure of “discomfort” that arises from making big decisions without it.  Part of the “deal” of being a business leader is that, hopefully, the financial rewards compensate for the discomfort and uncertainty that comes with this decision-making responsibility.  

Tax advice for setting up a new business

According to Luke Johnson, one of Britain’s most successful entrepreneurs and the author of Start It Up, “Running your own business is easier than you think”.  But what happens if, like many people you are a little cautious about trading in your current job and taking the plunge? What if, instead, you want to keep working for your current employer whilst running your own business on the side?  If so, there are some considerations and future actions you need to be aware of in respect of tax.

HMRC collects extra £3.4bn from SMEs following VAT enquiries

In order to maximise its revenue from compliance investigations, HMRC is putting increasing pressure on small and medium sized businesses. As a result, many businesses could be at risk of enquiries into their tax filings.

For example, data recently disclosed by HMRC shows they collected £3.4bn in extra tax through analysis into SMEs for underpaid VAT alone.

What have we learned since the last financial crisis?

Oh how time flies! It’s now been ten years since the last financial crisis, which many considered was the worst since the Great Depression in the 1930s.

So what went wrong?

Create a tax efficient buyout strategy for your business

The sale of your business can be an opportunity to realise the value of your lifetime’s investment. A chance to redress the balance and reap some of the rewards for the sleepless nights, long working days, missed family occasions and the many other sacrifices you’ve undoubtedly made along the way.

But….what if you don’t want to take your business out to market? Or what if you want to pass the business onto the next tier of management and you want to control the process?

10 top tips to help cope with a VAT Visit from HMRC

Although the days where regular, even annual HMRC VAT visits to businesses are seemingly long gone, in the past 12 months I have seen a steady increase in the amount of VAT enquiries being raised by HMRC, with a significant number of these enquiries arising from a VAT visit.

It is important to manage these visits in the best possible manner and the intention of this article is to give you some guidance around this in the form of the following 10 top tips:

3 important tax tips for university students and their parents

Going to university and getting that first taste of independence is an exciting step for students. There’s a lot to consider and parents may of course wish to support their children financially, where possible. Here are three tax planning points of which you should be aware if your children are heading off to university.

1.  Many believe that students are exempt from paying tax; this is not the case. However, every individual can earn up to the personal allowance, currently £11,500 per year, before tax needs to be deducted.

Measuring the success of your business with financial KPIs

We see quite a varied approach by businesses when looking at how they measure their success. Different companies will take a different approach in terms of what they measure and the frequency with which they do it, but regardless of size, industry or where you are in your business life-cycle; there are some common Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) which all businesses should be measuring.