Ian Piper (Ely)

(Data Source) As another year draws to a close, local SME businesses will be forgiven for looking forward to drawing a line under it. With 2019 sales growth barely nudging 1%, it has been a year of focusing on not slipping backwards, rather than the usual mantra of continually signing up new accounts.  When commentators…

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Readers, particularly knowledge based contractors working through their own personal service companies, will hopefully now be familiar with the new ‘off-payroll working’ tax rules being introduced in the private sector on 1 April 2020. These are being introduced as part of the Government’s general strategy over recent years to eliminate tax avoidance, tax evasion, and…

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As we edge ever closer to what looks more and more likely to be a ‘no-deal’ Brexit, SME business owners should now be readying their businesses.   There is clearly no certainty over quite how affected we shall all be by Brexit. However, there are sensible risk management mitigation steps that business owners may wish…

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It will probably be apparent to the casual observer, let alone the business owner or high net worth individual, that the tax climate has changed markedly over the last 10 years. As part of the raft of measures to tackle austerity within western developed nations, with the aim of collecting higher tax revenues, governments have…

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  Many companies, not just those in the tech industry, will have benefitted from the generosity of R&D tax relief. Eligible R&D expenditure can be inflated by a notional 230% uplift, and a refund of tax claimed on tax that was never paid in the first place. Perhaps not unsurprisingly, HMRC have identified abuses of…

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HMRC are not known for being ahead of the curve, so trying to find official guidance on how exchange gains from selling bitcoin, and other crypto currencies, is expected to be self-assessed and taxed, was always going to be ‘problematic’. At the time of first researching this, the latest HMRC guidance was published in 3…

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Business owners, like the rest of us, will be all too aware that Christmas is a ‘challenging’ time. A short working month usually means less production, less sales and less payments from customers. Add to this cost of staff Christmas bonuses, various festive jollies and large tax bills just around the corner in January, and…

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So now that we can finally see what Brexit might mean in reality, with the publication of the Draft Brexit Agreement, everyone is still unhappy. After much talk about what we wanted, which was leaving the EU club, whilst cherry-picking retention of access to the Single Market and a borderless border in Ireland, it has…

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Philip Hammond’s much predicted ‘End to Austerity’ Budget was a lot more positive than similar pronouncements of recent years. Although UK growth is still sluggish (predicted at 1.6% for 2018), higher than expected tax revenues have enabled the public purse strings to be loosened. Announcements that will be of interest to technology SME’s include: New…

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Those companies that continually go through funding rounds, such as your typical techco start-up, should be aware that HMRC are introducing a new tax election wef 6-Apr-19: Proposed legislation contained within the Finance Bill 2018 This election will allow shareholders who hold at least 5% of the company on 6 April 2019, and who are…

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