Watson Knipe Blog

A recent announcement about the support to businesses still available through grants was made. They are encouraging companies to apply for the grant funding available to help them recover post-pandemic.

As we are quickly approaching the end of the year we wanted to remind you all that as well as Christmas you also need to think about your self-assessment tax return submission.

Chancellor Rishi Sunak presented his third Budget on 27 October 2021. In his speech, he set out the plans to “build back better” with ambitions to level up and reduce regional inequality.

If you are an employer, you may already know about National Minimum Wage and the National Living Wage changes.  If not, then this article will be helpful for you.

Business owners of limited companies can maximise their earnings post-tax by paying themselves a low salary along with the balance in dividends from their company’s profits. However, from April of this year, the 10% dividend tax credit was abolished and replaced with a new dividend tax allowance of £5,000 per year.

When you started your business you probably wanted to remain as lean as possible. But as your business expands, wearing all hats may become impossible and you need a helping hand to grow and remain competitive.

Many businesses take on apprentices as they start to grow. An apprentice is a young person who is learning a trade from a skilled employer and has agreed to work for a defined period at a low wage.

Owners and managers of small and medium-sized businesses must be champions in the art of multitasking, but they also need to cope with long hours of work and occupational stress.

A new Budget is always eagerly awaited by small businesses, and with news of a revaluation of business rates, this is a worrying time for many SMEs.

The law on pensions has changed and even small businesses must now enrol employees in a workplace pension - a process known as 'auto-enrolment.

In 2016, it was announced that Class 2 NICs (National Insurance Contributions) would be abolished from April 2018. This was again mentioned in the Spring Budget 2017.  Class 2 NICs are paid by individuals that are self-employed.

In 2015, the government first announced that it would be making tax digital for businesses. In the Spring Budget 2017, more information about this initiative was shared. We have written this article to explain who will be affected and some of the benefits of this change.

If you decide you want to start a new business, it’s usually because you have a skill, product or service that you are passionate about. You want to offer this to other people and more importantly, use this passion to earn a living.

Once you have decided on Company structure, whether to be VAT registered or not and opened a bank account then there are a few more things you may want to consider at these early stages.

For all business start-ups, one of the biggest expenses can be buying or leasing premises. Before you jump straight in, have a think whether you need premises or if there is an alternative option that may help keep overheads down until your business starts to grow.

We work with a lot of people that operate their businesses as sole traders. For some, this business structure works well, and they can continue to work like this for as long as they want to.

We have written this case study to illustrate how we work with businesses that are ambitious to grow. We started to work with this new client, electrical contractors, who have grown quicker than they anticipated and they wanted to gain more support to keep control of their finances.

We love to work with a start-up business; it’s fantastic to help them at the initial stages and then watch them grow. We started working with a new business last year that was setting up a shopfitting company. Our client had previously been employed and had been made redundant; he took this as an opportunity to set up his own business.

In 2017 the Government sought views on how employers currently deal with employee expenses, current tax rules on employee expenses and the future of employee expenses. As a result of this survey, a number of changes were announced in the Autumn Budget 2017.

As an employer, it’s important to keep track of the National Minimum Wage and National Living Wage if you have staff that are being paid at this level.