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Are you cohabiting, married or in a civil partnership? The nature of your personal relationship can have a significant impact on the way your income is treated for tax purposes. Although ‘common law’ relationships are becoming increasingly common, UK tax law currently discriminates against these sorts of arrangements. Married couples and people in civil partnerships […]

Giving occasional gifts to your staff is a great way to keep them engaged and motivated. But how much can you give before these gifts become taxable? Certain lower-value gifts can be given to employees (including directors) tax free. These have to be classed as ‘trivial gifts’ to qualify. But what counts as ‘trivial’ in

Christmas is nearly here, and it’s a great time to let your customers and team members know how much you appreciate them. But this has been a tough year – it’s not easy to know how much to spend or whether it’s appropriate to throw a party. Gifts, cards and donations The traditional professional Christmas

Small businesses could receive up to £5,000 towards the cost of buying new software to support their growth ambitions. From December, the government’s new Help to Grow: Digital programme will give free and impartial advice to businesses on how going digital can help them grow and reach their full potential. The scheme for eligible small

If the rules around social functions are followed, staff events like your end-of-year party, or your summer barbecue are tax-deductible for you, as the employer, and tax-free for your staff. This means you can claim back some of the expenses you incur when putting on a social event for your team, while also helping to build better

You’ll no doubt have seen the news of a rise in both employees’ and employers’ National Insurance contributions (NICs). It’s been a contentious move by the Government, with some people seeing the policy as a necessary way of generating extra revenue for the NHS and social care, and others questioning if a tax on workers

As the founder of a company, there’s a long list of compliance tasks to get your head around – and one of the key tasks will be registering your company for business taxes. Once you’ve registered as a limited company, you become liable for paying taxes on the profits you make. These taxes are collected

Corporation tax is a tax that’s levied on your company’s profits. When you operate your business through a limited company, that company is considered to be a separate entity from you as an individual. Among other things, this means you have to pay corporation tax (CT) on your company’s profits But how does CT work?

Value-added tax (VAT) is a consumption tax that’s levied on goods that have had value added at each stage of the supply chain. Most businesses with annual sales of £85,000 or more have to register for VAT. And even if your sales are below that level, you can register on a voluntary basis. VAT can

Do you know how much it costs you to produce each product or service in your range? The better you can understand this cost of sales – or cost of goods sold (COGS), as it’s more commonly known – the more ability you have to control your company’s profitability. When you know your COGS, you