HLAS

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: [...]

With the departure of Boris Johnson, the contenders as leader of the Conservative Party and Prime Minister (PM) have now been whittled down to the last two – Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss. Whoever wins will need to appoint a new chancellor and we await their tax policies with interest. In the event of Liz Truss becoming PM, we are expecting her Chancellor to call an emergency Budget, with a flurry of tax reductions being announced. In her campaign to win support from Tory members, Liz Truss has suggested that she would reverse the 1.25% Health and Social Care Levy. [...]

The Office for Veterans’ Affairs will provide £100,000 in funding to the charity Veterans Into Logistics, to support veterans to become HGV drivers. The announcement is on top of the £25m of UK Government funding being distributed through the Armed Forces Covenant Fund Trust to charities to offer support to veterans across the United Kingdom. The grant has been provided to the charity Veterans into Logistics, which offers bespoke training for former military personnel who wish to pursue careers in HGV driving. See: Government funds HGV driver training programme for veterans - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)  

The Plastic Packaging Tax (PPT) was introduced on 1 April 2022. If you manufacture or import plastic packaging into the UK, you may need to register for PPT, submit a PPT return and pay any tax due. As the end of the first quarterly accounting period for PPT approaches, HMRC shared some key reminders on completing PPT returns and payments. If you are liable to register or have already registered for PPT, from 1 July 2022 you must submit your PPT return and pay any tax due no later than 29 July 2022. Your PPT return needs to cover plastic [...]

The National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) has published new guidance in which it urges UK organisations to prepare for an extended period of heightened cyber security threat. The guidance is designed to apply to any period of sustained heightened cyber threat, including the one arising from Russia in light of events in and around Ukraine. While the NCSC is not aware of any current specific threats to UK organisations, it says that the cyber threat to the UK remains heightened and they expect it to stay that way for some time. The new guidance aims to help organisations avoid complacency [...]