Making Tax Digital is the latest HMRC campaign to modernise tax collection and make life easier for business owners.
The first raft of changes, which affects VAT payers, will come into force on 1 April 2019. But a survey from the British Chambers of Commerce reveals that 24% of firms have never even heard of the measure.
Making Tax Digital for VAT will apply to all VAT-registered businesses that have a taxable income over the VAT threshold of £85,000.
The number of small and medium sized businesses (SMEs) has skyrocketed in the UK.
The Government now estimates that there are 5.7 million private sector businesses at the start of 2017 and 99.9% of these companies were SMEs.
This represents an increase of 197,000 businesses set up since the start of 2016 and a whopping 2.2 million since 2000.
That’s an increase of 64% in 17 years.
Survey evidence has revealed that a tiny proportion of the smallest UK businesses believe that the newly appointed Small Business Commissioner will tackle the late payment crisis.
Research from cloud accounting software company FreeAgent shows that just 2% of UK microbusinesses believe that the new Commissioner, Paul Uppal, will take the challenge ‘seriously’.
Other research from the company shows the scale of the problem.
After a tumultuous election campaign the final result was anything but decisive. With no party winning an overall majority, we look at what freelancers wanted out of the election, who they voted for and what could happen next.
The Chancellor’s first Autumn Statement was a mixed bag for self-employed workers and small and medium sized business owners.
Changes to the tax system will hurt some more than others, but investment in roads, railways, housing and the country’s digital infrastructure should benefit everybody.
Here are some of the most important points we have taken from the Chancellor’s statement.
The Association of Independent Professionals and the Self-Employed (IPSE) has called on the Chancellor to increase the VAT threshold from £85,000 to incentivise self-employed workers.
The plea was issued in response to a government consultation on the VAT threshold.
This consultation was opened after the Office for Tax Simplification (OTS) suggested that the threshold should be lowered significantly to £26,000 - the UK’s national average wage.
Having been battered by some recent budget statements, contractors and other self-employed workers might have had a sense of foreboding as Philip Hammond stood to deliver his budget speech to the Commons yesterday.
Rumours circulating in the run-up to budget day didn’t help matters. It was widely reported that the Chancellor could extend public-sector IR35 compliance rules to the private sector and it was rumoured that the VAT threshold could be lowered.
The recently published review of modern working practices in the UK has recommended that some workers, currently classified as self-employed, should get certain benefits like sick and holiday pay.
The Taylor Review, however, did not recommend these benefits for all self-employed workers.
The report comes after research by cloud accountancy software company FreeAgent and the Freelancer and Contractor Services Association (FCSA) found that sick pay was top of the wish list for freelancers and microbusiness owners.
Freelancers and contractors have welcomed the Chancellor’s decision to drop a National Insurance contributions (NICs) increase that would have affected self-employed people.
Chancellor Philip Hammond told MPs that the government would not proceed with NICs increases laid out in his budget last week after the government came under fire for apparently seeking to break a 2015 manifesto promise.
It has been three months since Britain decided to sever its ties with the European Union, but lots of us are still unclear exactly what that means and what effect it will have on us in the future.
While many British businesses grapple with Brexit’s consequences, the self-employed people who service them are in a state of limbo.
September did bring some positive signs for Britain’s flexible labour force and experts now suggest that some of the more apocalyptic Brexit scenarios are unlikely. But the black cloud of Brexit and the legacy of so-called ‘Project Fear’ still loom large over freelancers’ heads.
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