Tax free perks could be a summer bonus for staff

Many tax breaks are swiftly disappearing, as the Government’s reforms begin to take shape. What perks can you offer staff that are tax efficient? They can also be beneficial for your business…..

Britain gets its first decent Budget for business in years!

Yesterday’s Budget was the first decent budget for entrepreneurs and business owners for some time and it’s exactly what the country needs to help rebuild economic activity.

CGT shake up requires careful planning for investors

The weekend papers were full of news about the planned increases to capital gains tax (CGT) announced by the new government. Some commentators have argued that this change has been on the cards for some time, although during the Election campaigning it was only the Lib Dems that formally announced their intentions. Subsequently incorporated into the coalition’s policies, we can expect CGT rates for top earners to more than double for non business assets and the exemption threshold to be cut from £10,100 to between £1,000 and £2,000.

These changes will be painful, especially since for the past 2 years, the flat rate of 18% has been extremely generous. But given the poor state of the Treasury’s coffers, the disparity between income and capital tax rates cannot be sustainable.

Coalition tax policies unveiled mark the end of ‘E’ Relief

Last week, the new Conservative LibDem coalition government was announced amid a flurry of guarded excitement and scepticism. The coalition has been quick to stamp out suggestions that their political differences will be too marked to produce effective financial policy and so far, the speed with which agreements have been reached is impressive and very positive in terms of their quality.

The Partnership Government can learn lessons from Business owners

The current situation with a hung parliament offers a very interesting parallel to the question facing some entrepreneurs of adopting either a partnership or a limited company status. At a micro level, the issues facing partners within a business are very similar. There is no right or wrong approach, and each business needs to decide individually which structure to opt for. (Of course, this is only an issue where a business has more than one main contributor.)

In my experience, businesses tend to prefer operating as a partnership when there is a desire to retain the full involvement of all members in the decision making processes. It is sometimes felt that if authority is devolved to a particular board member to make decisions relating to certain aspects of the business, then the decision making powers of other key figures within the business will be diluted. And therein lies the challenge, both at a business and political level. But if a business is well governed, this isn’t necessarily the case.

The biggest disadvantage of the partnership structure is that decision-making is slower because each time, a consensus needs to be achieved. The downsides of this are a loss of spontaneity and the ability to capitalise quickly on opportunities. All too often, it’s the “being in the right place at the right time” scenario that has meant an entrepreneur has achieved great success.

And isn’t this exactly what is happening in Government right now? It has taken a number of days for the Tories and Lib Dems to strike a deal and form a coalition government. The view from business is pretty unanimous. They regard a hung parliament to be just about the worst thing that could have happened to the UK economy, just when it looked like the country was starting to climb slowly out of recession. Now we potentially have more uncertainty and no real direction – so let’s hope this new “partnership” Government can make some swift and effective decisions, otherwise, we can expect another Election in the coming months.

Lesley Stalker is Head of Tax at RJP

Should tax be a cross party issue?

Tax has become very politically motivated, perhaps too much so. Policies are introduced which are ill-researched and potentially damaging. What can be done about this? Should an all-party committee be established to restore political independence to tax policy making? What options exist?

Local Business Owners React to the Pre-Budget Report

We predicted it would be a controversial pre-budget report and it lived up to expectations, with some headline measures that are clearly designed to win over the hearts and minds of Labour’s core supporters. But in spite of this, most observers would agree that overall, it was a pretty good result for Surrey’s business owners.

Government to introduce new ‘broadband tax’

Controversial plans to introduce a tax on landlines are set to be become law before the next election, the Government has announced.

Under the scheme, everyone with a fixed line telephone will pay a levy of 50 pence a month.

“Time to Pay” creates new lender for SMEs – with full government backing!

As problems with getting access to finance continue among small firms, the controversial Business Payment Support Service (BPSS) offers a very practical solution for many short term cash flow problems.