Latest Business Support

Maximising future entitlement to state pension may not be at the forefront of people’s minds, but following the introduction of the new State Pension in 2016, the ability to pay voluntary National Insurance contributions to ‘fill’ gaps will become far more limited from April next year.   You can usually only pay for gaps in…

If you were interested in offering your employees the Cycle to Work Scheme, there are three main methods you could use:   Salary Sacrifice Loan Pooled cycles   Method 1: Salary Sacrifice Under this method, your employee would be agreeing to sacrificing part of their salary before tax and you would provide the hire of…

From Monday 3 October 2022, the UK government has changed the ‘small’ company threshold, which is expected to remove 40,000 businesses from certain reporting regulations. Since January 2016, a company qualifies as ‘small’ in the year that it does not exceed two or more of the following: Annual turnover:                                   £10.2m Gross Assets:       …

Having received a copy of a letter a client has received from HMRC today, it states that due to inactivity on your VAT account your direct debit instruction has expired. If you wish to pay by Direct Debit in the future you will have to complete another Direct Debit instruction, either online or by post.…

Adding to the plethora of red tape, there is now a requirement for overseas entities (ie a legal entity, such as a company or other organisation, that has legal personality and is governed by the law of a country or territory outside the UK) who own or lease property or land in the United Kingdom…

After winning individual categories, Austin Macauley Publishers were also adjudged the well deserved overall winners of the 2022 SME Ely Business Awards in last night’s awards ceremony held in Ely Maltings. Congratulations from all at Whitings. Whitings have supported this event for 9 consecutive years now, both as headline sponsors and in judging some of…

In his first fiscal statement in his recently appointed role as Chancellor of the Exchequer, Kwasi Kwarteng has made a series of unusually radical announcements to try and stimulate growth in the UK economy. Owners of SME businesses will be particularly interested in the following business tax changes: The planned corporation tax rise in April…

Cambridgeshire County Council has just relaunched its Business & IP Centre (BIPC) ‘Jumpstart’ grant scheme, to help startup businesses in Cambridgeshire. Main eligibility criteria: Your business must have been registered, in Cambridgeshire or Peterborough, on or after 1 November 2021, or be registered within two months of receiving the grant. You must be 18 or over.…

There is now less than a calendar month before the self-assessment (SA) deadline for registering with HMRC (5 October 2022). Do not delay – register today!   If you are not sure if you need to file an SA tax return, did you, between 6 April 2021 and 5 April 2022:   Commence working for…

In working out what income you will need in retirement, there are many factors to take into consideration. You are not only having to look ahead 20, 30, maybe 40 years into the future, you are also having to look at your outgoings in the here and now and having to work out what you…