Latest blogs for Specialisms

Growth Shares: Incentivize & tie-in key managers. Attracting, motivating and retaining key staff  is a primary aim for most tech and other business owners. As part of their remuneration package, allowing such staff to invest in growth shares in the company is a useful tool to achieve this. Growth shares are a separate class of equity, with specific…

Love the Lorry:  National lorry week (26-31 October). The Road Haulage Association is calling on all members all over the country to get involved with its national week-long awareness campaign to educate the British public about trucks and is inviting hauliers to sign up on www.lovethelorry.co.uk The savvy haulier will be aware of recent changes…

Removal of CIS Gross Payment Status: Financial consequences no longer relevant. A recent HMRC appeal (CRC v J P Whitter) heard in the Upper Tribunal overturned a decision made by the First-tier Tribunal to reinstate gross CIS payment status on the grounds of it having a ‘significant detrimental effect on the business’. The Upper Tribunal…

SME Cyber Security: £5k grants available. Small and micro-sized businesses can apply for government vouchers of up to £5,000 for specialist advice to boost their cyber security, and to protect new business ideas and intellectual property. The vouchers enable businesses to access services from the UK cyber security industry. This new scheme will also help…

Pay Suppliers Electronically: Beware fraudsters. Do you hold your suppliers bank details on file – one tactic recently used by fraudsters is to advise businesses of changes to a supplier’s bank details, they then wait until a genuine purchase invoice is paid. Unfortunately because the supplier’s bank details are compromised, the payment goes to the…

Road Haulage: Driver fines on the rise. Jack Semple from the RHA published a video on the rising fines for drivers on 5 August, which can be found at:  http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/video-news/video-road-haulage-association-on-rising-fines-for-drivers-31429477.html Key points discussed are fines for drivers who are found with migrants in their vehicles and the increase of 50% on last year in the…

Contractors: Beware possible end to 24 month travel & subsistence tax rules. The more observant readers of the recent Summer Budget will have noticed that tucked away from the main headlines was the announcement that HMRC have started a 3 month consultation exercise into:     Employment Intermediaries and Tax Relief for Travel and Subsistence The aim…

Hauliers: HMRC introduce roadside fuel testing Operators will be interested to hear that HMRC announced on 28 July 2015 that new hi-tech equipment has been introduced to allow officers to test heavy goods vehicles at the roadside for illicit diesel. As HMRC will be ‘keen’ to use the new technology, it is envisaged the number…

Product Development Costs:  CapEx or OpEx ? Nowadays there are very few areas where accounting standards give you a big choice over what accounting treatment you can adopt. The costs of developing a new product (once it has passed its research phase) are one such area. Tech companies have the choice of accounting treatment –…

EMI Share Options: the tax advantages. Enterprise Management Incentives (EMI) are a tax advantaged share option scheme that can be used to provide an incentive to key staff. The key tax advantage of EMI options in most cases is that no income tax or national insurance will be payable on the exercise of the option. The…