If you employ students to manage your staff needs over the summer break period, you will need to add them to your payroll and apply PAYE and NIC rules.   Students should be advised that they will pay tax and NIC if: they earn more than £1,048 a month on average, and pay NIC if […]

There are a number of tax incentives if you own and let a furnished holiday lets property (FHL). They include:   Claiming Capital Gains Tax reliefs for traders (Business Asset Rollover Relief, Business Asset Disposal Relief, relief for gifts of business assets and relief for loans to traders), Entitlement to claim capital allowance deductions for […]

Long-awaited government support to help consumers meet the unprecedented increases in energy costs was announced by the Chancellor this week.   His measures have been widely appreciated, but will he need to return with more largesse to meet even more prices increases in oil, gas and electricity prices in the autumn? What has he offered […]

Many households are considering their options to reduce their energy costs in light of the recent price hikes in the cost of electricity and gas.   Aside from breaking into long sealed chimney breasts and burning the furniture, realistic options have been extended in recent weeks by the introduction of a government grant of £5,000 […]

Setting up and running your own business is a risky undertaking. What happens if sales reduce or disappear, and you are left with unpaid costs or loans and no cashflow?   The experience of recent COVID lockdown challenges – aside from the risk to personal health – has resulted in business closures at an unprecedented […]

Cornwall, and we expect many holiday locations, are seeing an increase in landlords switching from domestic letting to holiday lets. Aside from the increased rents they can obtain, should they be successful in making this transition, there are tax as well as commercial advantages.   It all comes down to occupancy. What are the tax […]

If we lived in a world where the factors that affected trade and other commercial activity were unchanging, then plans drawn up for extended periods, say a year, would be a reliable benchmark to measure actual results against in the same period. Unfortunately, change is a common occurrence these days. Plans drawn up will become […]

The new Financial Services and Markets Bill, announced during the recent Queen’s Speech at the state opening of parliament, will support consumers by protecting access to cash. It will ensure the continued availability of withdrawal and deposit facilities across the UK, and that the country’s cash infrastructure is sustainable for the long term. The Bill […]

The more draconian government interventions introduced to control the COVID outbreak have challenged all of us, businesses and individuals, to consider the notion that we can no longer rely on our jobs or businesses to effortlessly produce the income we need. Many businesses in the hospitality and entertainment sectors had their ability to trade quashed. […]

Would demand for the products or services you sell vary with price increases or decreases? This conundrum is considered by the term elasticity in economic circles – how demand changes when prices change. If demand for your products is elastic, any change in price will have a corresponding impact in demand. For example, if you […]