Growth Vouchers – closing soon!

Apply before 31st March to get up to £2,000 from the Government for professional business advice

• Growth Vouchers are a grant from the Government to help businesses like yours get business advice from accredited advisers.

• The voucher match-funds your investment in professional advice for your business so you could get a grant of up to £2,000 towards the cost of the advice.

You can use the voucher to get advice on:

• Finance – and how to manage your cash flow better
• Recruiting staff – how to develop their skills
• Improving management and leadership skills
• Marketing – attracting and keeping customers
• Technology – and how your business can make the most of it.

https://smallbusinessgrowthvouchers.service.gov.uk/eligibility-check/?em2

steve@bicknells.net

What if you change a dividend to salary

Let’s look at the case of Richard and Julie Jones v HMRC [2014] UKFTT 1082 (5 December 2014).

They took a small salary and regular dividends from their recruitment company which was absolutely fine until the company got into financial trouble!

Their accountant (unethically but in an attempt to help their client) suggested they should re-write history and change the dividends to salary so that the liquidator couldn’t recall the dividends.

HMRC then decided to demand PAYE and NI and pursued Richard and Julie personally.

HMRC was refused the right to collect PAYE tax and NI due on the salary, not because the law didn’t allow it, but because it wasn’t possible for Richard & Julie to reclassify the dividends. They had been properly paid and the correct procedure followed. History couldn’t be rewritten and the dividends should have been changed to loans if the dividends were illegal.

steve@bicknells.net

Auto Enrolment – Free Webinars

With the introduction of automatic enrolment, thousands of employers need to automatically enrol their eligible employees into a workplace pension scheme. Many small and micro employers will look to their bookkeeper, accountant or payroll advisor for help and advice. BrightPay is hosting a series of free Auto Enrolment Webinars specifically designed for bookkeepers, accountants and payroll advisors to make it easier to help payroll clients with their new obligations.

These webinars will include a number of guest speakers from the accounting and payroll industry. The topics covered will highlight various methods to streamline your auto enrolment processes and save you time handling these employer duties for payroll clients. Below is a list of each webinar with the guest speakers and topics that will be discussed. These are completely free webinars. Book your place today.

Webinars Dates

18th March
● Paul Byrne: Payroll Bureaus Guide to Profit from Auto Enrolment
● Mark Lee: How to STAND OUT from your competition
Register here https://www.brightpay.co.uk/events/9/

24th March
● Paul Byrne: Embrace Auto Enrolment to increase profits
● Patrick McLoughlin: Using Auto Enrolment to attract your Ideal Clients
Register here https://www.brightpay.co.uk/events/10/

25th March
● Paul Byrne: Essential Questions to ask you Payroll Software Provider
● Darren Critten: Auto Enrolment – Collaboration is the key to Success!
Register here https://www.brightpay.co.uk/events/7/

Written by Karen Bennett for BrightPay Payroll Software

New ‘Starter Homes’ scheme gives 20% discount!

The 20% discount is achieved by waiving local authority fees for homebuilders of at least £45,000 per dwelling on brownfield sites.

At the heart of the Starter Homes initiative is a change to the planning system. This will allow house builders to develop under-used or unviable brownfield land and free them from planning costs and levies. In return, they will be able to offer homes at a minimum 20% discount exclusively to first time buyers, under the age of forty. Under the proposals, developers offering Starter Homes would be exempt from those Section 106 charges and Community Infrastructure Levy charges. The homes could then not be re-sold at market value for a fixed period – making sure that the savings are passed onto homebuyers.Gov.uk

To qualify first time buyers must be under the age of 40 and living in England.