10 crazy Christmas accounting facts

Been Naughty?

It’s nearly Christmas, but did you know….

  1. While millions of people are exchanging presents, feasting on turkey, and nodding off in front of the television, 1,600 people are expected to take time out from the yuletide festivities and do their tax return online
  2. If your employer spent more than £150 per head on parties you could be facing a tax bill in the new year
  3. If you are given third party gifts (suppliers) worth more than £250, then you could he taxed on them
  4. An employer may provide employees with a seasonal gift, such as a turkey, an ordinary bottle of wine or a box of chocolates at Christmas. All of these gifts can be treated as trivial benefits.
  5. Shoppers spent £1.2bn on ‘Panic Saturday’ (20th December 2014)
  6. Christmas Shoppers will spend £74bn in 2014 and of this £17.4bn will be spent online
  7. From 2016, employers will be able to give employees tax-free “benefits” – not cash – of up to £50 a year.
  8. HMRC will not be holding any Christmas Parties for its staff according to the Telegraph
  9. Many people think Scrooge was an accountant but he was actually a moneylender
  10. There is no VAT on purchased gift vouchers as they are treated as cash equivalents, its only when they are used to purchase items that VAT needs to be accounted for.

Have a great Christmas

steve@bicknells.net

Are you selling online? 20% more will be sold online in 2014

dreamstimefree_111433

Last year in was reported by BBC News….

A record amount of online shopping was done in December 2013, says the British Retail Consortium (BRC).

Close to one in five non-food items was bought online last month.

There was also a 19.2% growth in internet purchases from a year earlier, the fastest increase in four years……..

According to Law Donut….

Online sales in the run up to Christmas this year are expected to grow by 19.5% over 2013, with UK shoppers expected to spend £17.4 billion online.

Total Christmas sales are predicted to reach £74.3bn according to research conducted by the Centre of Retail Research for RetailMeNot, with the average UK household spending £775 on all of their Christmas shopping.

Are you trading online? do you have a website? do you have an App?

steve@bicknells.net

Will you be supporting Small Business Saturday?

Small Business Saturday Chalk board Sign

Small Business Saturday will be on Saturday 6th December 2014.

Over 99% of Business are Small or Medium Sized! and 47% of employees work for those businesses.

https://smallbusinesssaturdayuk.com/#small-biz-100

We want all kinds of small businesses to get involved, so know that whether you are a family business, local shop, online business, wholesaler or small manufacturer, Small Business Saturday is supporting you!

Research carried out by American Express following last year’s event found that 43 per cent of consumers chose to visit small businesses as a direct result of Small Business Saturday.

Secretary of State for Business Innovation and Skills Vince Cable confirmed: “The Government is fully behind the Small Business Saturday campaign, which gives people the opportunity to trumpet the valuable contribution they make, not just to the economy but to their local communities.”

steve@bicknells.net