HLAS

New legislation will ensure seafarers get paid at least equivalent to the UK National Minimum Wage. The UK government has introduced new legislation to make sure seafarers get paid at least equivalent to the UK National Minimum Wage. The changes mean that thousands of seafarers regularly entering the UK will receive fairer pay. The Seafarers’ Wages Bill – introduced in the House of Lords – enables port authorities to deny access to services calling regularly at UK ports who do not pay their workers equivalent rate to the UK National Minimum Wage (NMWe) for time spent in UK waters. See: [...]

People across the UK will have the chance to become owners of at-risk local pubs, theatres, post offices, sports grounds and corner shops with the launch of the UK Government’s Community Ownership Fund. Voluntary and community organisations can bid for match funding. The Community Ownership Fund is open for Expressions of Interest applications. Once you have passed the EOI stage you will be sent a link to submit a full application to the Fund. Please note you can only submit a full application if you have received confirmation that your project is eligible at the EOI stage. Your full applications [...]

The Bank of England will be withdrawing legal tender status of the paper £20 and £50 notes after 30 September 2022 and are encouraging anyone who has these to spend or deposit them at their bank or Post Office. As they are returned to the Bank of England, these are being replaced with the new polymer £20 notes featuring J.M.W. Turner, and polymer £50 notes featuring Alan Turing. After 30 September 2022, the new polymer notes will be the only ones with legal tender status. After 30 September 2022 people with a UK bank account will still be able to [...]

An important support scheme offering Government-backed loans to small businesses will be extended for a further two years, Business Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng announced last week. The Recovery Loan Scheme, originally launched in April 2021 to help businesses recovering from the Covid-19 pandemic, has supported almost 19,000 businesses with an average of £202,000 in support. The Recovery Loan Scheme (RLS) is a government scheme aimed at supporting access to finance for UK businesses. It gives lenders a government-backed guarantee against the outstanding balance of the facility. See: Further support for small businesses feeling the squeeze as £4.5 billion Recovery Loan Scheme [...]

Below are a few examples of some great questions from our “101 Great Marketing Questions” template we keep for clients to help think about existing marketing activities and how they can improve on them. Not all the questions will be relevant to your business, but it is a valuable exercise and may help you come up with a few ideas for growing your customer base. Here are a few examples to help you drive your sales upwards: Why do our customers buy from us now? What new ways of generating customers can we use to build our business? Which of [...]

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 and then looks at some really useful ideas. 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 Increase your own effectiveness and efficiency Here are some other business principles that we explore in [...]

After some of the hottest temperatures seen on record last week we are reminded about global warming and how small businesses can help our country drive towards net zero. A sustainable business, or a “green business”, is an enterprise that has minimal negative impact or potentially a positive effect on the global or local environment, community, society, or economy—a business that strives to meet the triple bottom line. Going green can boost your competitiveness, lower costs, and improve your business’s reputation with your customers and staff. Most importantly, consumer trends reveal that consumers are increasingly assessing a company's environmental credentials, while [...]

Making Tax Digital (MTD) for VAT has been with us since April 2019, with the extension to all VAT registered businesses from April 2022. The next roll-out will be the introduction of MTD for income tax which is scheduled to start in April 2024. The obligation to keep records in a digital format and report information quarterly will apply to unincorporated businesses and property landlords with gross income from all business activities in excess of £10,000 a year. Businesses operating MTD for VAT may already have ‘functional compatible software’ for income tax purposes but will need to get into a [...]

In recent years HMRC have identified and successfully challenged a number of spurious claims for Research and Development (R&D) tax credit relief made by purported ‘R&D Consultants’. Many of these claims have been for projects that did not satisfy the criteria for the tax relief and some included overstated expenditure and consequently have been abusing the scheme. The R&D rules offer legitimate claims generous tax breaks. For a company that is a Small or Medium-sized Entity (SME), qualifying expenditure attracts a tax deduction of 230% of the amount spent which can then be traded in for a tax refund of [...]

In the increasingly competitive jobs market, it is important that employers are able to attract and retain talented people to help them grow their business. Within certain sectors, the opportunity to participate in the equity of the organisation that they work for is something that more employees are seeking and those employers that do not offer such opportunities could put themselves at a disadvantage when looking to retain and recruit. For corporate employers, there are currently four HMRC ‘tax-advantaged’ schemes that provide employees and employers with income tax and National Insurance Contribution (NIC) advantages. The four tax-advantaged schemes are currently: [...]