HLAS

MORE MONEY FOR THE NHS AND INFRASTRUCTURE IN THE BUDGET  Rishi Sunak received a “hospital pass” when he was appointed Chancellor and was required to deliver the first Budget in nearly 18 months within a month of his appointment.  He announced extra spending on roads, rail, broadband and other infrastructure projects as well as extra money for the NHS to help cope with the coronavirus epidemic. But what we were waiting to hear was where the extra money was going to come from? Had he found a “magic money tree”, or would tax and borrowing have to increase? The Office [...]

At Harris Lacey and Swain we are always trying to encourage clients to embrace technology to better their businesses. Now is the the time, to save time.What exactly is Receipt Bank? Receipt Bank is an award winning, data entry application taking businesses by storm. Saving business owners hours in admin time, it’s used to manage receipts, invoices, and other documents that businesses depend on to keep accurate, secure financial records and what’s more, it can be done in just one click. So simple! How does it work? The best news is that there’s an app and, if you’ve read our [...]

With the self-assessment deadline looming – if you are late to the party, you should be thankful you dropped in that box of chocolates to your accountants before the Christmas break. (If not, shame on you!) We’ve decided to create a helpful guide to help you not only become one of our favourite clients, but to avoid stress, errors and more importantly, an unexpected tax bill with only days to spare before its due. Tip one. Failure to prepare, is preparing to fail. But we didn’t need to tell you that! It sounds like the most simple advice but preparing [...]

As a car loving accountant, this is a subject close to my heart on two counts; great cars and low tax! In the next tax year (2020/2021) having a company electric vehicle will become much more attractive. The Benefit in Kind (BIK) charge will drop to 0% and only rise to 2% in tax year 2022/2023. What does this mean in the real world? A Porsche Taycan costing £100,000 would give you a benefit of only £2,000 per year, which means a tax cost of £800 as a 40% tax payer. Compare this to a petrol or diesel car costing [...]

If your business operates in R&D, you could save thousands of pounds each year.  What are R&D tax credits?  R&D tax credits are a government tax incentive designed to encourage productive innovation in UK businesses by rewarding limited companies that are actively making a difference to improve their product performance, manufacturing processes and streamlining their services to be more efficient and reduce their carbon footprint.   Is my business eligible? If your business is liable to Corporation Tax and undertakes R&D, you could claim back on your expenditures. Examples of R&D activity include: Improving product performance and manufacturing processes by [...]