Month: November 2017

  • How is your business performing? – measures to use.

    What are the best ways to assess your firm’s performance? Changing market conditions make it more important than ever to measure your business’ performance on a regular basis. The impact caused by recent events, such as the vote to leave the EU in June 2016 and the snap general election, have added to the uncertainty…

  • Reducing corporation tax on patent income

    Reducing corporation tax due on patent income. The patent box regime applies a reduced rate of corporation tax to profits attributable to qualifying patents and similar intellectual property (IP). Unincorporated businesses can’t qualify for the patent box. The patent box tax rate has gradually been reduced to 10% since the introduction of the regime in…

  • Apprenticeship levy – offsetting the cost

    Almost a quarter (23%) of businesses paying the apprenticeship levy has no understanding of how it works – six months after its introduction. 56% of more than 1,400 firms surveyed by the British Chambers of Commerce (BCC) did not expect to recover their payment, despite receiving an annual allowance to offset against the bill. As…

  • Investment and Brexit

    Businesses are in no rush to make investments amid the ongoing uncertainty of Brexit, according to the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales (ICAEW). More than one in four businesses are delaying investment decisions as the government continues negotiations with the EU. As a result of their collective cautiousness, 61% of those firms…

  • Late payments and cash flow

    Two-thirds (66%) of small businesses are feeling the effects of clients who fail to pay their bills on time, research shows. Banking group Close Brothers polled 900 small business owners and found the problem was particularly serious for 87% of SMEs in Northern Ireland, 73% in London and 72% in the South West. Late payments…

  • National living wage – the under 25’s

    Workers under the age of 25 are missing out on more than £6,000 a year because they are not entitled to the national living wage (NLW). Charity group Young Women’s Trust polled 4,010 people aged between 18 and 30, finding the average young worker is paid £3.45 an hour less for doing the same work…