SPOT THE ACCOUNTANT

What do these titans of LinkedIn have in common?

Tom Phillips
~ Rhian Anstey ~
Andrew Jancey “AJ”
Edward Williamson
Janine Mitchell
Victoria Jones, ❤️ Employee Health Geek (she/her)

Answer – none of them are accountants!

However, unlike eg doctors or social workers, anyone can set up as an accountant.

How to spot an qualified accountant:

• Qualified accountants pass lots of hard exams over many years
• They also receive continuous accountancy training
• Proper accountants are properly insured
• Accountants are highly regulated

There is also a Qualified by Experience certification –

5 year’s public practice experience plus other requirements.

As for the others –

It’s the Wild West, they can do what they want, and be really cheap as they don’t have to pay for all this.
If they do anything wrong there’s no one to tell them off, so if they give you the wrong advice or make mistakes on your accounts, there is nobody to hold them accountable when they are not regulated.

So, like asymptomatic people with Covid, you can’t always tell if they have it or not (the qualification as well as the virus).

As with everything else in life, it’s advisable to do your research so you know what’s on offer and whether your accountant has the accountancy qualifications and regular training required.

Do you know if your accountant is good enough for you?

Are they hiding a secret?

Would you let an unqualified mechanic repair your car or an unqualified doctor perform surgery on you? If the answer is yes, you probably are not too concerned about using an unqualified accountant!

A VAT THRILLER

It’s March 2020 – your business is closed. Your future is uncertain. You have a VAT bill to pay.

Then there’s an announcement.

Don’t worry you can pay the VAT bill next year. Phew ?

It’s March 2021 – it’s been a tough 12 months. You are told you have to pay that VAT bill from 12 months ago at the end of this month. You haven’t got the money to spare.

It’s April 2021, you still haven’t paid that 2020 VAT bill due last month.

Don’t worry, you can apply online to pay it by instalments, even though it’s late.

Phew ? again!

And Phew ? in May, and in June (up to the 21st) you can apply then as well.

Have you not paid last year’s VAT bill?

Did you know about instalments?

Are you saying Phew ? ?

Let’s celebrate paying your VAT bill by instalments!

SAVE TAX IN A PANDEMIC

Great news that businesses reopened recently, let’s hope that’s the last time they have to close.

It’s maybe too exciting yet to talk about taking advantage of the situation to save tax, but here’s a couple of ways in which those nasty tax bills can be reduced because of the lockdown –

1 . If you have a Limited Company – consider changing your financial year end.

If you have been closed then it’s extremely likely you have lost money whilst shut. You will be able to use that loss to reduce your tax bill and by changing the year end may be able to increase that loss!

2 . Reducing tax bills from previous years and getting a refund

This for the self-employed as well.

Before the last budget, you could use a loss to reduce last year’s tax bill.

Now you can go back 3 years (temporarily) so if you use up last year’s profit, you can claim against the year before that, or even the year before that one.

Would reducing tax, or a refund, help your business?

Do you know someone who can work out the sums to see if this will work?

Are you just too thrilled at being open to be bothered?

Here’s a man working out tax refunds on his phone in a beer garden whilst his PA shelters him from the sun.

If you want me to help you to save tax in a pandemic, call me on 07834 049316 0r send me a message and I can call you back when you are ready to talk about reducing your business tax bill.

THE INLAND REVENUE SALE CONTINUES

Is it a bird?
Is it a plane?
No, it’s …… Super-Deduction ?

Until March 31 2021, if a limited company bought equipment, it reduced the tax bill by 19%.

From April 1 2021 it’s now called ‘Super – Deduction’ and enhanced by 30% to 24.7 % for anything bought up until March 31 2023 ?

More generosity from our Charitable Chancellor ?

Capital Equipment includes –

• Plant
• Machinery
• Tooling
• Computer Equipment
• Furniture
• Software
• Commercial Vehicles (vans/lorries etc.)

Spend £100,000 and save £24,700 in tax instead of £19,000!

But here’s a health warning ⚠️

When you sell that equipment there’s a tax bill.

After 1 April 2023 that tax bill increases substantially.

So plan this carefully with a proper accountant/tax professional, so there’s no nasty surprises in a couple of years.

Are you going to experience a super deduction?

Will it make you more attractive to men/women/both when you talk about your new enhanced equipment?

Do you like saving tax?

You can find out more about the super-deduction on the Government website, or give us a call if you would like to get sone advice on how this impacts your business and your future tax bills.

6 April 2021 marks the new 2021 tax year and hopefully you will by now have recovered from your Tax New Year’s Eve celebrations!

There has not been huge cause to celebrate this year, although there are some changes to tax allowances you should be aware of.

From 6 April 2021 …

You can earn another £70 without paying tax. That gives you an extra £14 a year. Wow!

You can earn an extra £200 without paying higher rate tax. That’s worth another £40 a year. Outstanding!

Many Directors pay themselves £732 per month, which is the maximum possible amount at which the Tax and National Insurance bill is zero.

This increases to £737 per month from today, another £60 a year. Fabulous!

(by the way at this salary, you qualify for the benefits of National Insurance, even though you don’t physically pay anything, another free gift from HMRC).

So we are all a lot richer now.

Do you feel wealthier?

How will you spend all this extra money?

Here’s how an accountant celebrates this windfall with champagne:

A man of many talents

Are you a company Director?

Has your business borrowed money?

Were you asked to sign several pieces of paper when you obtained the finance?

Do you know if one of them was a Personal Guarantee?

Do you know how much money you are guaranteeing?

Do you know what happens with a PG when a company can’t pay a debt?

Do you know you could have to sell your house?

Is your company unable to pay the debt?

Do you need to ask someone to help you?

Just over a year ago I did a short presentation which included these questions.

As I was leaving I was collared by a man, who had a work colleague who had answered ‘ yes ‘ to all the questions.

But he had no one to help him.

Later that day, I called his colleague.

We helped him, the call started a chain of events that saved him £20,000.

Have you got a PG?

Are you concerned about it?

Are you being asked to pay a company debt personally?

Would you like us to help you? Just get in touch for a chat and hopefully we can do the same for you.

Let’s get it for you !!

One of my missions in life is for as many businesses as possible to receive a tax refund for R & D tax credits

It’s a Govt incentive paid as a tax reduction for limited companies. Qualifying activities are usually considered normal by business owners.

There are hundreds of thousands of £’s of unpaid tax credits in HMRC bank accounts.

Are you a business owner who knows about this opportunity and is missing out?

Are you worried you don’t fill the criteria to claim or don’t have the knowledge to do so?

It’s not a trick, there’s no catch

Announcing our solution to your problems ( drumroll please ) ?

Multi award winning business consultant Tracy-Jane(TJ) Duncan-Moir of Business Glu

She successfully carries out, in a relaxed friendly manner, the work for companies whilst enabling them to get on with their day job

She extracts and compiles the info to deliver to the specialist to get you the tax refund, while you carry on making money in your business the way you know-how.

If you haven’t got the time, then let TJ do the work for you

Can you afford to ignore a tax refund ?

Would you like us to make it easy for you?

Here’s TJ smiling her way to success…

HIDDEN TREASURES

We all like to find something valuable that others don’t know about.

Some of us travel the beach with metal detectors or dive into deep water to find the cargo of sunken ships.

In business, there are some hidden away as well.

The R and D tax credit is a strangely unknown potential tax saving for Limited Companies. It can provide a substantial financial boost to a business for, what seems to be, a straightforward activity.

But here’s another one –

The SSAS – small self-administered pension scheme.

Instead of your pension being locked away, similar to R and D, it can help develop your business. It has the same tax benefits as a ‘regular’ pension but you are in control.

Some features –

It can –

Purchase commercial property
Lend money to the business
Enable the business to pay rent into the scheme
It can create a valuable fund for your future and a legacy for future generations.

My good friend Neil Ryder is a specialist in this area , why not contact him today ?

Do you want to provide for your retirement?

Do you want control of your pension?

Here’s the handsome, friendly, face you will see when you speak to Neil Ryder on Zoom.

WHO WANTS £100,000?

Jamie owned a call centre. He wasn’t looking forward to today.

The new accountant was coming. He thought it would be boring.

Some guy in a pinstriped suit, what would he want?

The accountant arrived. He was a lot better than Jamie had expected.

He asked about the IT. Was it ‘ off the shelf? ‘

Jamie explained, in lots of detail, that they had acquired ‘ normal ‘ software but then had spent time, and money, adapting it to make the business more efficient.

The accountant then explained about R and D tax credits, a big tax saving for Limited Companies, and how Jamie’s business would qualify because of his systems, even though to Jamie it was just a normal sensible way of developing the business.

A few weeks later Jamie’s business received £100,000 from HMRC.

He looked forward to seeing the accountant after that.

Has your business been developed like Jamie’s?

Would you like £100,000?

Do you like your accountant?

Here’s Jamie’s accountant celebrating another big tax refund.

THAT VAT BILL FROM LAST YEAR

Just to clarify ….

It’s not called ‘The Third VAT’ (suggesting there’s a first and second VAT)

Or ‘The furred VAT’ (like an animal)

It’s ‘Deferred VAT’, the VAT payment that was put off this time last year by the kind permission of Rishi Sunak.

A year later it’s decision time about paying. If you are paying in full it needs to be by March 31.

If you can’t pay it in full, Rishi’s generosity is even more extravagant.

He will let you pay it off over as much as 11 months, depending on when you apply for instalments.

To pay monthly you have to ask by June 21.

Any other requests for time to pay, you need to agree with HMRC by June 30.

As for all other VAT, it’s the usual rules.

You can be late once for free, then have to be on time for a year or there’s a ‘surcharge’ (unless your annual turnover is less than £150K, then you get two free goes).

And that’s all the exciting VAT news….

Are you going to pay your VAT in instalments?

Did you realise that VAT is this thrilling?

Can you spell VAT?

Here’s the ‘ Third VAT ‘ party …. where you drink gin out of a watering can in a shed