HLAS

The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) is advising businesses to think how they need to adapt to warmer working conditions for their staff. After this year’s record-breaking temperatures and with more hot weather this month, HSE is asking employers to ensure extreme heat becomes part of their long-term planning. Adapting to climate change is something all businesses will need to consider as warmer weather becomes more frequent. Employers have a legal obligation under the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations to assess risks to the health and safety of workers. They must review the risk controls they have [...]

Employers have a legal duty to protect employees’ health, safety, and welfare and understanding the signs of drug and alcohol misuse (or abuse) will help you manage health and safety risk in your workplace. The HSE website has step-by-step guidance to help you manage drug and alcohol misuse at work. This includes advice on how to develop a drugs and alcohol policy and what you can do to support your employees. See: Managing drug and alcohol misuse at work - Overview - HSE

Then ask us for a copy of our guide called “57 Ways to Grow Your Business”! Our publication is packed full of bright Ideas for the Serious Entrepreneur and starts with the four basics of growth. All the ideas in this guide ultimately revolve around four basic insights about growing a business. You can: Increase the number of customers; Increase the number of times each one does business with you; Increase the average value of each transaction; and Increase your own effectiveness and efficiency. Here are some other business principles that we explore in the guide: What you can measure, you [...]

For limited companies, when it comes to making decisions, Company Law states shareholders who own more than 50% can pass a motion at a company meeting regardless of the views of other shareholders and if a shareholder(s) owns 75% or more of the shares they, control the company outright and can veto the decisions of all other shareholders. This may not suit all business situations, especially where you have two or more founders holding equal share capital or a group of owners with varying amounts of capital, some of whom are directors and some who are not, but who are [...]

The table below sets out the HMRC advisory fuel rates from 1 September 2023. These are the suggested reimbursement rates for employees' private mileage using their company car. Where the employer does not pay for any fuel for the company car these are the amounts that can be reimbursed in respect of business journeys without the amount being taxable on the employee. Where there has been a change the previous rate is shown in brackets. You can also continue to use the previous rates for up to 1 month from the date the new rates apply. Note that for hybrid [...]

Draft legislation released for consultation on 18 July indicates that business and individual taxpayers will be required to provide more information to HMRC in the next few years. It is proposed that from 2025/26, employers will be required to provide more detailed information on employee hours worked via real time information (RTI) PAYE reporting. The information to be reported will be set out in separate regulations. From 2025/26 shareholders in owner-managed businesses will also be required to provide additional information via their self- assessment tax returns. These shareholders will be required to disclose the amount of dividends received from their [...]

Currently, where an individual pension holder dies before age 75, drawdown pensions paid to a successor can generally be received free from income tax. Where the pension holder dies over the age of 75, then the amounts drawn by the successor are taxed at their marginal income tax rate. Note also that the current tax rules provide that the value of the fund passes free of inheritance tax to the successor and thus forms an important part of estate planning. Policy documents published in July 2023 include draft legislation to abolish the pension lifetime allowance and associated income tax charge. [...]

The government have issued draft legislation for consultation on the proposal to merge the two forms of corporation tax relief for expenditure on research and development (R&D) For expenditure incurred on or after 1 April 2024, it is proposed that the two schemes providing for R&D relief - R&D expenditure credit (RDEC) and Credit Relief for SMEs, will be merged and replaced with a single unified scheme. This will operate alongside a new scheme to provide additional relief for “R&D intensive” SME companies. It is suggested that this merged scheme will operate in a similar manner to the existing RDEC [...]

Parents and carers need to be aware that if either of the couple have ‘adjusted net income’ in excess of £50,000 then the one with the higher income will potentially be charged to tax on some or all of the child benefit and will need to request a self-assessment tax return to report the amount of child benefit received in the tax year. The High Income Child Benefit Charge (HICBC) was introduced in 2012/13 and imposes a 1% charge on the amount of child benefit received for every £100 that the taxpayer’s adjusted net income exceeds £50,000. ‘Adjusted net income’ [...]

The Government’s Tax-Free Childcare Accounts provide a 25% subsidy towards the cost of childcare. The account can be used to pay nursery fees, breakfast clubs, after school clubs and registered childminders. The scheme operates by topping up savings of up to £8,000 per child by 25%, potentially an extra £2,000 a year from the Government to spend on qualifying childcare. The scheme generally applies to children under 12. In the case of disabled children the age limit is 16 and the amount that can be saved is £16,000 a year, topped up by the Government by a further 25% to [...]