Young people with great business ideas apply here

The Princes Trust and Innovate UK have formed a partnership to support young people with business ideas that could become a reality. The nuts and bolts of the scheme are set out below.

Ideas can come from anywhere

The competition – part of the ideas mean business campaign – will help young adults to make their ideas a success, no matter where they come from. Business ideas could be spotting a solution to a problem or a different way of doing things. They could involve:

  • changing something for the better in a local community
  • a new way of using technology to fix an everyday problem
  • a new way to tackle an environmental issue

 

What support is on offer?

Support is available to young innovators who can commit 15 hours a week to developing their idea.

This award will include:

  • an allowance to cover time spent working on the idea
  • coaching and mentoring from an innovation champion
  • a funding pot for activities or resources, such as travelling to meet customers and partners, training courses, equipment, office space and IT

Who can apply?

To be eligible applicants must:

  • be a UK resident that has the right to work in the UK, or is applying for the right to do so
  • be unemployed or either working less than 35 hours a week if applying through the online programme, or working less than 16 hours a week if applying through the in-person programme
  • not be studying or studying less than 14 hours a week
  • be aged between 18 and 30

People currently receiving support from the Prince’s Trust’s in-person Enterprise programme are also eligible to apply.

How to register

Applicants will need to register with The Prince’s Trust, where they will then be able to sign up to attend one of a series of regional events. These events will help young people to develop their ideas and give more information about the application process.

You must attend an event to apply and you will be able to get your costs reimbursed. If you are not able to attend but still want to apply contact younginnovators@ktn-uk.org to discuss.

Reasonable excuse for late filing of tax returns

According to an announcement made on the gov.uk website last week, more than three million self-assessment tax returns had not been filed with just a week to go before the 31 January deadline. That’s a third of returns due to be filed.

Readers who find themselves in this category may feel that they have an excuse for late filing, and should not pay the automatic penalty of £100. HMRC will consider a reasonable excuse and the criteria they will consider is set on their website and is reproduced below:

What may count as a reasonable excuse?

A reasonable excuse is something that stopped you meeting a tax obligation that you took reasonable care to meet, for example:

  • your partner or another close relative died shortly before the tax return or payment deadline
  • you had an unexpected stay in hospital that prevented you from dealing with your tax affairs
  • you had a serious or life-threatening illness
  • your computer or software failed just before or while you were preparing your online return
  • service issues with HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) online services
  • a fire, flood or theft prevented you from completing your tax return
  • postal delays that you couldn’t have predicted
  • delays related to a disability you have

 

You must send your return or payment as soon as possible after your reasonable excuse is resolved.

What won’t count as a reasonable excuse

The following won’t be accepted as a reasonable excuse:

  • you relied on someone else to send your return and they didn’t
  • your cheque bounced, or payment failed because you didn’t have enough money
  • you found the HMRC online system too difficult to use
  • you didn’t get a reminder from HMRC
  • you made a mistake on your tax return

If you did miss the deadline, for whatever reason, it will be in your best interest to file the outstanding return as soon as possible. In addition to the automatic £100 late filing fine there are progressive penalties if your late filing extends for months rather than days.

Practical support for subcontractors affected by the Carillion liquidation

If, as is widely predicted, the Carillion liquidation proceeds, sub-contractors owed money by Carillion will have to join the list of unsecured creditors and are forecast to receive no more than 1p in the £ as a pay-out.

Apparently, most Carillion suppliers have been keep waiting for 120 days to get their invoices paid. If that proves to be the case for your business, there are a few basic steps you could take to regularise your financial position apart from laying off staff and sub-contractors engaged for your Carillion work. They are:

  • Bad debt: First job is to quantify the amount of the debt owed by Carillion, contact the liquidators and register your claim.
  • VAT: If you are registered for VAT and using the standard method of accounting you will have paid over any VAT added to your invoices to Carillion, and if these debts are now irrecoverable you can claim this VAT back. You will need to wait as debts need to be unpaid for 6 months. If you use a VAT special scheme (Cash Accounting for example) you only pay VAT when you are paid so no claim will be necessary.
  • Self-employed? If you are self-employed, any payment on account for 2017-18 (due January 2018) will be based on your taxable income for 2016-17. As your profits for 2017-18 are now likely to be much reduced, it may be possible to reduce the payments on account falling due for payment January and July2018. You will need to lodge a formal application with HMRC.
  • Limited Company? If you are an incorporated subcontractor you will have lost possibly four months past turnover to bad debts and future income from your Carillion contract(s). This will make a severe dent in your current year’s profitability and a significant reduction in any corporation tax you may owe. In many cases it may result in losses for the current year that can be carried back for corporation tax purposes and used to reduce tax paid in previous years. You will need to take professional advice on this point.
  • Banks: Hopefully, your bank will be sympathetic, and extend facilities to see you through. They will, however, need forecasts to determine that you can survive the loss of past and future earnings from Carillion. Which bring us to the last and perhaps most important review you should undertake.
  • Update your business plans: You will need to sit down with your advisors and consider your options. Perhaps this blow will be terminal for your business and you will need to follow Carillion into liquidation, but this may not always be the case. On careful consideration of your options will show the way.

The government has also issued a press release for businesses that were contracted to Carillion and will be concerned about their ability to pay their tax. As part of its ongoing commitment to delivering support for businesses, HMRC will provide practical advice and guidance to those affected through its Business Payment Support Service (BPSS).

The BPSS connects businesses with HMRC staff who can offer practical help and advice on a wide range of tax problems, providing a fast and sympathetic route to agreeing the best way forward and addressing immediate concerns with practical solutions.

The BPSS can:

  • agree instalment arrangements if you’re unable to pay your tax on time following the Carillion collapse
  • suspend any debt collection proceedings
  • review penalties for missing statutory deadlines
  • reduce any payments on account
  • agree to defer payments due to short-term cash flow difficulties

HMRC can also provide workers and their families with cash support through the tax credits system – details are on the https://gov.uk website.

If you find yourself without advice at this difficult time, please call to discuss your options. Clients affected should call as soon as possible so we can organise tax appeals and consider other matters.

World first register to crack down on money laundering

The government has made the following announcement regarding a new register they are creating to provide government with greater transparency on overseas companies. In short, the register will provide a:

  • world-first public register will require overseas companies that own or buy property in the UK to provide details of their ultimate owners,
  • £180 million worth of property in the UK has been brought under criminal investigation as the suspected proceeds of corruption since 2004,
  • government will publish draft laws this summer and the register will go live by early 2021.

 

A world-first register revealing owners of overseas companies buying property in the UK will go live by early 2021 to crack down on criminal gangs laundering dirty money in the UK, the government has announced.

More than £180 million worth of property in the UK has been brought under criminal investigation as the suspected proceeds of corruption since 2004. Over 75% of properties currently under investigation use off-shore corporate secrecy – a tactic regularly seen by investigators pursuing high-level money laundering.

The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy’s register will require overseas companies that own or buy property in the UK to provide details of their ultimate owners.

This will help to reduce opportunities for criminals to use shell companies to buy properties in London and elsewhere to launder their illicit proceeds by making it easier for law enforcement agencies to track criminal funds and act.

Recently, in the House of Lords, the government committed to publishing a draft bill this summer and introducing it in Parliament by next summer. Following legislation, the register would go live by early 2021.

Business Secretary Greg Clark said:

We are committed to protecting the integrity and reputation of our property market to ensure the UK is seen as an attractive business environment – a key part of our Industrial Strategy.

This world-first register will build on our reputation for corporate transparency as well as helping to create a hostile environment for economic crimes like money laundering.

The register will also provide the government with greater transparency on overseas companies seeking public contracts.

What options are left to pay your tax

As we have previously reported on this blog, HMRC will no longer accept payment of tax using a personal credit card. Also, payments cannot be made at the Post Office. The remaining options are to make payment by:

  • A personal debit card,
  • A business credit card,
  • Bank transfer/online banking,
  • Taking a payment slip to your bank or building society with a cheque made payable to HMRC and quoting the correct reference,
  • Setting up a direct debit with HMRC,
  • Sending a cheque to HMRC with a payment slip,
  • By adjusting your tax code to recover the tax due. There are limitations to the use of this method.

You could set up a Budget Plan with HMRC to make regular payments in advance; unlikely to be a favoured option, and if cash flow is an issue, you might be able to pay off arrears by instalments. To do this you will need to contact HMRC and agree a plan. They will need to know:

  • your reference number (for example, your 10-digit unique taxpayer reference or VAT reference number)
  • the amount of the tax bill you’re finding it difficult to pay and the reasons why
  • what you’ve done to try to get the money to pay the bill
  • how much you can pay immediately and how long you may need to pay the rest
  • your bank account details

They will also ask you about:

  • your income and expenditure
  • your assets, like savings and investments
  • what you’re doing to get your tax payments back in order

HMRC will use this information to decide whether you should be able to pay immediately, or if you can’t, whether you’ll be able to get your payments back on track with more time.

You should also be prepared to be asked more in-depth questions if you’ve been given more time to pay before. In more complex cases HMRC may ask for evidence before they decide.

In most cases the NMW is an obligation not a guide

There is a temptation to consider that the National Minimum Wage (NMW) and National Living Wage (NLW) rates are a guide to the amounts you should be paying employees. In fact, they are the minimum rates you should use (unless you are covered by the exceptions listed below) and they are a legal requirement, one that has teeth.

We have reproduced below workers entitled to these rates, and those not entitled.

Workers entitled include:

  • part-timers
  • casual labourers, for example someone hired for one day
  • agency workers
  • workers and homeworkers paid by the number of items they make
  • apprentices
  • trainees, workers on probation
  • disabled workers
  • agricultural workers
  • foreign workers
  • seafarers
  • offshore workers
  • apprentices are entitled to special rates if under 19 or in the first year of their apprenticeship.

Those not entitled include:

  • self-employed people running their own business
  • company directors
  • volunteers or voluntary workers
  • workers on a government employment programme, such as the Work Programme
  • members of the armed forces
  • family members of the employer living in the employer’s home
  • non-family members living in the employer’s home who share in the work and leisure activities, are treated as one of the family and aren’t charged for meals or accommodation, for example au pairs
  • workers younger than school leaving age (usually 16)
  • higher and further education students on a work placement up to 1 year
  • workers on government pre-apprenticeships schemes
  • people on the following European Union programmes: Leonardo da Vinci, Youth in Action, Erasmus, Comenius
  • people working on a Jobcentre Plus Work trial for 6 weeks
  • share fishermen
  • prisoners
  • people living and working in a religious community
  • a student doing work experience as part of a higher or further education course
  • of compulsory school age
  • a volunteer or doing voluntary work
  • on a government or European programme
  • work shadowing

HMRC oversee the use of these rates and are entitled to visit your premises to check and see if you are complying with your NMW and NLW obligations. If they find you have short paid employees, you will have to compensate workers immediately and face possible fines for non-compliance. HMRC can also take an employer to court on behalf of employees.

If you are unsure of your obligations, we can check out what your position is and advise accordingly.

VAT – what is disaggregation

There are many businesses that benefit from not being VAT registered. In the UK, there is no obligation to register until your taxable turnover exceeds £85,000. For many smaller businesses, especially those that buy and sell goods and services in competition with larger concerns, charging their customers without the 20% VAT add-on can be a compelling advantage especially when they are selling to the public, who can’t reclaim the VAT they would otherwise be obliged to pay.

There is a temptation for traders who want to capitalise on this competitive advantage, to split off parts of their business into a separate trade if VATable turnover was likely to exceed the £85,000 registration limit. In this way, the two businesses could bill up to £85,000 each and therefore double their advantage in the market place.

Unsurprisingly, HMRC are not keen on this strategy and the disaggregation – business splitting – rules basically outlaw this attempt at avoiding VAT registration.

To challenge this type of arrangement, HMRC need to be able to prove that the two (split) businesses have “financial, economic and organisational links.” For their challenge to work, HMRC must prove that all three apply.

In practice, this still offers planning opportunity for smaller businesses, but to be successful achieving the necessary arms-length outcome can be difficult especially if family members are involved. There are other issues that need to be considered. For example:

  • Separation of bank accounts and business records.
  • Each business must be separately registered with HMRC and submit its own tax return.
  • Customers should be convinced that they are dealing with two businesses.
  • Any charges for goods and services between the split businesses must be conducted at arm’s length.

Traders who are approaching the registration threshold, and would like to consider splitting off part of their trade to a separate business, should undertake careful planning to avoid the disaggregation rules, if that is possible. Please call if you would like to discuss your options.

Timing is everything – part two

The week before Christmas we posted an article stressing the value of checking out the tax consequences of investing in new plant and equipment. We stressed the importance of timing.

But this is just one issue that should be considered before the end of the current tax year. Every business owner and individuals with significant earnings, should take time out to consider their planning options before 6 April 2018.

The 5th April may not seem to be a particularly important day, but at midnight on that day 90% of your options to make beneficial changes to your financial circumstances for 2017-18 disappear.

We all have obligations to abide by the law, but it is perfectly acceptable to organise your affairs to retain as much as you can of your hard-won earnings and profit, and still stay within the terms of the UK tax code.

Your planning options for 2017-18 fall into two main groups:

  1. Strategies to reduce the impact of taxation on your profits and earnings, and
  2. Strategies to avoid stepping into one or more of the tax “bear traps” that await the unwary tax payer.
  1. business is different, and every individual has unique financial circumstances. For these reasons it is dangerous to generalise about the possible benefits of tax planning; which is why we recommend year-end tax planning to all our clients and business prospects.

Timing, as the title of this article asserts, really is everything in this regard. If you have a business, or are concerned by the amount of tax you are paying, please call and organise a conversation with us so that we can consider your options for 2017-18. The clock is ticking.

Happy New Year

Let us hope that 2018 presents opportunities to build our business interests and improve the financial position of our families. Certainly, there were many changes last year, not least the ongoing implications of the Brexit vote, that have proved to be challenging and not only for the politicians.

A reminder, as we look forward to the new year, that our actions in the future will be dictated to some extent by past changes. We have listed below just a few of these challenges, some of which we reported in length last year, and many of which will require action on our part in the coming year.

If you are in business:

  • Deal with your obligations, if any, to comply with the General Data Protection Regulation – see the article we posted on this topic last month.
  • Deal with your obligations, if any, to comply with the Criminal Finances Act 2017 – again, see the article we posted on this topic last month.
  • Review your management accounts before the end of your current account’s year to make sure that there are no changes required before the end of the trading year. From a tax planning point of view this is essential as once your trading year or tax year end passes opportunities to save tax may be permanently lost.
  • Are you aware of your obligations to pay tax (VAT, corporation tax, income tax or other National Insurance liabilities) during 2018. At the end of this month your self-assessment dues for 2016-17 and payment on account for 2017-18 fall for payment.
  • Are you in the most effective VAT scheme for your size and type of business?
  • If you are still recording your accounts on spreadsheets or handwritten records, have you considered using internet based accounts software? Come the day we are required to upload our accounts data to HMRC, under their Making Tax Digital program, using a computerised system that links with the tax office IT will make the job less of a chore.

For individuals:

  • Look at salary sacrifice opportunities especially if your taxable income for 2017-18 will exceed £100,000 for the first time. Any strategy that shifts income into tax-free benefits could save you marginal tax at 60% if you have earnings between £100,000 and £123,000.
  • Parents claiming child benefit should be wary if one partner’s earnings are likely to exceed £50,000 for 2017-18. A High Income Child Benefit Charge may apply. This could mean benefits being repaid to HMRC and the possibility that you may have to register for self-assessment for the first time.
  • Check out your eligibility to pay more into your pension fund before 6 April 2018.
  • Have you fully utilised your tax allowances for 2017-18? For example, your personal tax allowance £11,500; the capital gains tax exempt amount £11,300; and inheritance tax tax-free gifts allowances.
  • Have you taken advantage of the £20,000 ISA limit?

Please call if you would like to review any of these or other planning opportunities for 2017-18. Don’t forget that once the year end passes any likely benefits that you could have benefitted from may be permanently lost.

Sole trader or incorporated

From April 2018, the £5,000 tax-free dividend allowance is reducing from £5,000 to £2,000.

Does this mean that converting from self-employed to a limited company arrangement to save tax and NIC is no longer a viable option? Readers who have adopted this strategy will have likely seen a reduction in taxes due thus far, but the partial loss of the dividend allowance will reduce overall savings that can be made.

However, in most cases benefits will continue to accrue albeit at a reduced rate, and if profits are retained in the company, rather than withdrawn as salary or dividends, these benefits could still be significant.

  • A company paying tax at 19% on its taxable profits can retain 81% to improve reserves and fund investment.
  • A sole trader or partnership, paying income tax at 40% or 45% can only retain at best 60% or 55% of taxable profits.
  • Sole traders or partnerships who are taxed at the basic rate of 20% will still be required to pay additional NIC on their profits and will not be able to retain funds at the same rate as a company.

Will be keeping an eye on the numbers for clients who have adopted this strategy and will discuss their options when we review their tax position during 2018.