Latest News

Is your organisation living in the Dark Ages?

Does your business have effective internal communication? If something happened to your business, would everyone know what to do? Nick discusses the importance on internal communication and how vital it is to record documentation in order to help if an issues arises.

How do law firm partners get paid?

How does your remuneration package compare with other Law Firms?

Is remuneration in line with appraisal and how does the war for talent impact on incentive schemes, benefits, bonus and salaries?

What should be in my fee earners appraisals and how do law firm partners get paid?

We’ve surveyed over 40 legal practices across the UK to find out. Click on the link below to view our findings…

Are You Entitled to Bad Debt Relief?

With the recent news that Carillion has gone into liquidation, many small and medium businesses are left worried that they may be out of pocket, or even worse, depending on their exposure to Carillion. They good news is that these businesses can obtain VAT bad debt relief  on the amounts owed to them by debtors. Stephen goes into detail about the circumsatnces that will make businesses eligible for bad debt relief. 

Are rates of pay and skills shortages limiting the manufacturing industry?

In recent times the national living wage (NLW) and the national minimum wage (NMW), have been introduced to ensure workers earn sufficient funds to afford a decent standard of living.

The Manufacturing Industry and the Fourth Industrial Revolution

For those of you with a good grasp of numbers, the fourth Industrial Revolution would suggest that there have been three earlier ones. 

The First Industrial Revolution was the transition to new manufacturing processes in the late 1700s to the early 1800s.  This included the coal, iron, textiles and rail roads and early introduction of machinery, steam power and the rise of the factory system.

Spotlight on Manufacturing: Is servitisation the future and what is the Internet of Things?

I recently bought a pair of running shoes.  It occurred to me that there was a time when I would have simply wandered around the shop to check that they were comfortable and, if they were, I’d have bought them.

Nowadays when I buy running shoes, I’m sold on the technological advancements.  I want to see gait analysis to ensure the running shoes will match my style of running and I want to be offered additional products and services to enhance my running.

Changes to the Charity Commission Annual Return

All charities whose annual income exceeds £10,000 must complete the annual return.  The Annual Return 2018 applies to all charities with financial years ending from 1 January 2018.  Charities have ten months from the end of the financial year to complete the return.

HMRC seizes assets from 2,000 small firms.

It was October 2017 when I commented that “HMRC have their sights on small business” as HMRC were on record saying that SME’s dodge the most tax, releasing figures showing that small to medium sized businesses are responsible for 51% of the £5.2bn “tax gap” between what is owed and what is paid.

HMRC put tax-avoiding small businesses in to four categories, the “unthinking evader”, the “invested evader”, the “lifestyle evader” and the “systematic evader”.

Are you thinking about VAT at your works Christmas party?

I am almost sure that the first thing that everyone thinks about when the office Christmas party is mentioned is what should be done about the input VAT incurred, but for those that don’t think like this (maybe it’s just me), I thought it would be useful to give a quick reminder on the correct treatment.

When only employees of the business attend the Christmas party then this is seen as staff entertainment and is deemed to be wholly for the purposes of the business, and input VAT incurred on the event is fully recoverable.

Inheritance tax – a tax of choice?

Originally featured on Unbiased, November 28. 

If you asked your friends, ‘Who do you want to leave your money to when you die?’ some of them might say, ‘The taxman’ – but only if they have grown-up children who work for HMRC. Otherwise, it’s safe to say that most of us would prefer our families to inherit as much of our wealth as possible.