Russell Green

NEW IHT100 FORMS FOR INHERITANCE TAX Previously, for reportable transfers, an IHT100 form had to be submitted along with a separate 'event form' specific to the transfer in question. However, these forms and the associated IHT100WS worksheet have now been discontinued and replaced by standalone event forms tailored to the particular chargeable event being reported. Going forward, only the relevant IHT100 event form and any necessary supplementary schedules (e.g forms D31 to D40) will need to be submitted. Additionally, a new IHT100h form has been introduced to report assets leaving an 18-25 trust. The current list of IHT100 forms is as follows: IHT100a: Gift or other transfers of value in a trust. IHT100b: End of a QIIP. IHT100b: End of a QIIP due to death. IHT100c: Exit charge on assets in a trust. IHT100d: IHT on the 10-year anniversary of a trust. IHT100e: Charges on special trusts. IHT100f: Ending of a conditional exemption. IHT100h: Assets previously held in an '18 to 25' trust. These forms are definitely not DIY so reach out if you'd like my support. ASWATAX #inheritancetax #hmrc

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*** Does HMRC “approve” R&D Tax Credit claims? ***   It’s a common misconception that HMRC checks all R&D Tax Credit claims before “approving” them. It doesn’t.    According to HMRC, only a third of all R&D claims are checked before a payment is made. Most checks are still being made AFTER an R&D claim has been paid out, with a risk that the claim may have to be repaid.   This is because HMRC operates the R&D Tax Credits scheme on a "pay now, check later" basis, as part of its wider self-assessment system for Corporation Tax.   Just because an R&D claimant has received a cash payment, this doesn’t mean it has been “successful” or “approved”.   If your R&D advisor is declaring that its R&D claims are being approved by HMRC then it might be time to look for a new advisor.   Let’s try and dispel this idea that R&D claims are “approved” - spread the word by sharing this post!   #tax #randdtaxcredits #randdadvisor #hmrc #randdtaxrelief #hmrcenquiry

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I'm going to start this post with a caveat...... I think VAs are great at helping you with many aspects of admin work BUT Unless they are qualified to do so, they should not, under any circumstances, be providing bookkeeping services!!! Why? I hear you ask Well, there are 3 main reasons 1) They, more than likely, don't have the relevant qualifications do so and therefore they haven't been taught how to do it properly and fully 2) They are under no obligations to complete regular CPD to keep themselves up to date with the many and varied changes that HMRC make to business finances, vat rules, tax law etc 3) Because of the above 2, they are very unlikely to carry Professional Indemnity Insurance to cover them, or more importantly, you and your business, should they cock things up When choosing a bookkeeper, look for one who is qualified either through the ICB or AATBQ, ask to see their certificate, ask to see their professional indemnity insurance and ask what CPD they do After all, it's you who will ultimately be held responsible for the errors on your vat return, tax submissions and accounts, not them!! #bookkeeping #VAs #tax #vat

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A third of UK businesses still rely on old-fashioned manual systems – such as bin bags brimming with receipts and piles of paperwork. And Sage research has found that this manual admin burden is contributing to the UK’s long-standing productivity woes - with one hour of extra small business productivity worth an extra £7bn to the economy! 😮 These days, businesses have plenty of options when it comes to choosing software. There are hundreds of developers creating and perfecting new products designed to help you more effectively and efficiently run your business. 👍 With so many options available, it’s important to focus so you know where to start looking and how to make the best decision. Here are some factors to keep in mind when choosing software for your business. Don't wait until you're drowning in paperwork - embrace technology! #productivity #accountingsoftware #technology

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Many of our clients find that running an internal PAYE function is not cost or time effective. In some cases, their PAYE engagement is managed through their funding supplier, reducing their market options. Letting us take control of that function gives them the flexibility to choose the right funding supplier for them and find the best deals on the market. NumberMill provides three models which can help streamline the payroll process whilst maintaining PAYE engagement for the workforce. Call us on 0333 121 2001 to find out more. #NumberMill #Bureau #PEO #BusinessSupport

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3 reasons why you shouldn't work with me, and 3 reasons why you should 👇 🔴👎 £𝟮𝗸 𝗣𝗲𝗿 𝗠𝗼𝗻𝘁𝗵 𝗜𝘀 𝗧𝗼𝗼 𝗘𝘅𝗽𝗲𝗻𝘀𝗶𝘃𝗲 My fee depends on the size and complexity of your business. My minimum fee is generally around £2k + VAT per month for a business under £1mm revenue. If that's too expensive - I'm not a good fit. 🔴👎 𝗬𝗼𝘂'𝗿𝗲 𝗛𝗮𝗽𝗽𝘆 𝗪𝗶𝘁𝗵 𝗔 "𝗬𝗲𝗮𝗿 𝗘𝗻𝗱 𝗔𝗰𝗰𝗼𝘂𝗻𝘁𝗮𝗻𝘁" Your accountant sends your accounts once per year and answers all your tax queries. You don't need any forecasts, budgets, in-depth monthly reporting or strategy support as everything is going fine. You don't need my help in that case. 🔴👎 𝗟𝗮𝗰𝗸 𝗢𝗳 𝗧𝗶𝗺𝗲 I'll need to meet your key team members, discuss your strategy, analyse your data, ask questions and get feedback on initial forecasts and projections. If you don't have time to commit to working through the process, it won't be a good fit. 🟢👍 𝗨𝗽𝗴𝗿𝗮𝗱𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗙𝗶𝗻𝗮𝗻𝗰𝗲 & 𝗗𝗮𝘁𝗮 𝗙𝗼𝗰𝘂𝘀 You're ambitious and have an idea of where you want to get to, but you currently spend all your time working "in" the business. You would love your company to have a 3-year financial plan which is updated regularly and for your business to receive a beautiful monthly report that tracks your performance against your targets - both financial and non-financial. I'll help you set the targets. 🟢👍 𝗘𝘅𝘁𝗲𝗿𝗻𝗮𝗹 𝗦𝘂𝗽𝗽𝗼𝗿𝘁 Running a business can be lonely and all-consuming. You would value a non-executive director who can join your board meetings, and also support you personally to bounce ideas off, help troubleshoot problems and give you an external viewpoint on things. 99% of e-mails answered within 24hrs. 🟢👍 𝗦𝗲𝗹𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗬𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗕𝘂𝘀𝗶𝗻𝗲𝘀𝘀 You're looking to sell your business in the next 12-24 months. I'll help get you in a position where your business is "saleable" and I have a wide network of advisors who can help find buyers and facilitate the entire process. End to end support. ----- 👍 Like or comment and you'll see my posts more often

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Invoice Finance Minimum Fees - when will they kick in? It is a fairly simple calculation so let’s take a look at an example. The client has a business with a £5m turnover, service fee 0.4%, minimum service fee £15,000 p.a. So for clarification the minimum service fee only kicks in should the service fee applied to the notified invoices not reach the minimum amount. Calculation: Minimum service fee / service fee % = minimum turnover required £15,000 / 0.4 % = £3,750,000 So the minimum service fee will only kick in should the client’s turnover fall below £3.75m Also remember the service fee is applied to VAT inclusive turnover so this figure is gross. To get the net turnover divide by 1.2 assuming you charge VAT at 20%. #business #finance #entrepreneur

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💥 💥 Massive Discounts 50% sale this week only!!! 💥 💥 What was your first thought when you read this offer? I am sure we have all been sucked in by a deal that sounded too good to be true, only to be left disappointed weeks later… 😤 In my opinion, I always look at the long term and value for money, whether that is in my professional or personal life. Do you ever ask yourself “Can I really afford to pay for a professional?” But can you really afford not to? 🤷‍♀️ Whenever I find a problem, I always see an opportunity to save costs. I use my simple “DIRE” rule to make continuous improvements: ▶️ Discover – the error, bottleneck or need ▶️ Investigate – how this impacts the business ▶️ Resolve – the error with a plan to improve the current process ▶️ Execute – the plan With this approach, I'm not just fixing problems—I'm making everything better and more efficient. If you are looking for improvement and fed up with being left disappointed, send me a message so we can start on your improvement journey 👉 https://buff.ly/3HGb29n #ContinuousImprovement #ProblemSolving #Efficiency

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Here’s why we aren’t just compliance accountants and why we are the backbone to our clients finance function 😉 Many SMEs think that their taxes need to be filed and accounts submitted, like that’s enough to deliver value. But most of the time there is f**k all communication and f**k all effort. This is a huge problem. So we took a strategic and proactive approach to our model when we started up - monthly client meetings and live information were the core of our niche offering. We’ve taken on numerous clients from previous accountants - every time we’ve opened up Xero and seen 0 systems in place. Literally nothing 😳some still on sage 50 🤢 What we have noticed is that we’re built to scale with a consistent approach. Not take on too many clients and hire endlessly with reliance on someone with no experience or understanding. If you are in the market for a new accountant - remember, tax is a small part of the offering, proactivity can’t be taught to the lazy firms out there.

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Advent Calendar of Finance Tips - Number 2 Speak to an Accountant before you do anything! I regularly speak to (and see Facebook posts from) business owners who’s first contact with an accountant is after they have completed their first year of trading and realise that they ‘probably need to do some accounts or some tax stuff’ and there is always the last minute ones that look for an accountant just before the tax return deadline. Speaking to an accountant before you do anything can work wonders for your business. An accountant can help you set up and start running your business and can guide you along the way to make the right decisions for your business so that you have thought about things in advance and prepared rather than trying to solve problems after they have happened. For example: An accountant can help you to choose the right legal structure for your business, considering your short and long-term plans and factor in the tax implications of each option. An accountant can help you setup and manage efficient record keeping processes and systems so that you can stay on top of your finances rather than having to trawl through a years worth of receipts and try to remember what all the purchases were for. You would be surprised at how many business owners still keep all their receipts in a shoebox or hand them to their accountant stuffed in a carrier bag. An accountant can help you to plan for the future. If you are considering employing staff, will you have enough work for them to do? Will you have enough money in the bank to pay your bills in 6 months' time? What happens if you lose half of your customers? Should you sell more of product X and less of product Y? Are you making a profit from what you sell? Could you make more profit? These are all questions that your accountant can help you to answer.

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Not all accountants are equal. Our client, YW Ltd, met with us on Thursday to discuss their final year end accounts for 31 March 2024 and by the end of Friday, the accounts were approved. Last year, their accounts were not filed until October 2023, and no tax planning and strategy meetings were held. We were able to deliver the accounts quickly and efficiently because:- 👍 our client maintains their books and records regularly in Xero 👍 within a week of each month end they share the data we need to make adjustments and journal entries 👍 we deliver management accounts within days of each quarter end and discuss in a meeting, along with tax estimates 👍 we held a meeting 3 months before the year end to undertake tax planning and discuss adjustments 👍 we had a final accounts meeting, briefly reviewing the accounts, but mainly focusing on the future and next years plans. The benefits of working in harmony with each other are 🌟 no surprise corporation tax bills 🌟 we were able to prepare the directors Self Assessment early and reduce the payment on account for July 2024 🌟 our client wants to make an investment in their business over the next 3 months to build a website and marketing strategy. We were able to work with Swoop to identify a potential grant to help fund the project and provide them with up to date financial statements to support a potential loan application. If you feel you are not getting what you need from your accountant and you want to work with someone who will make it a mission to make sure you know and have access to your numbers on a regular basis, book a call. https://lnkd.in/dSAQ8Fw2 #knowyournumbers #financialclarity #3Ns #Directors #smallbusinessowner

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Increasing prices may cause clients to leave But using *price* as your sole mechanism for pushing clients out the door is risky *Do they have money to pay* is a factor in whether you should work with them, but so is: 1.) Do I enjoy talking with them 2.) Do I want 10 more just like them 3.) Are the problems I'm solving for them painful, aka do they value me, or do they just have money to pay

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Exits I joined a call the other day with a group of accountants and Liquidation Practitioners, who where discussing the current situation in the UK's SME world. Much of what we anticipated was going to happen when the flurry of covid loans were being dolled out, to all who fearlessly asked for them, has started coming to fruition. Money has gone from being free, to a very rare and expensive commodity for many of the smaller entities in the UK. This coming at a time when customers are feeling the pinch and stalling payments, creating a perfect storm of business failures. For many small business owners who are living from hand to mouth in this era of constantly rising costs and taxes, there seems to be little hope. The banks who they have trusted to keep their money safe for years and who, a few short years ago were clamouring over themselves to offer loans, are nowhere to be seen or heard. If you need a loan now and want to speak to a bank manager, you are probably going to struggle to get hold of anyone. Most of the high street banks have outsourced their Client manager functions to faceless AI bots, and left many a business owner with very few options for funding their struggling businesses. The Liquidators I have spoken to recently are indicating that things are starting to pick up in their industry, but it is not the tsunami that we are expecting - yet. The thing is, financial woes are not the only issue that cause business failure, or untimely exits, divorce, discontentment, death and disease can play a nasty role in causing problems for your retirement plans. But how about Unrealistic Expectations on the value of your business. Many owners believe that the blood, sweat, tears and sacrifice they had sown into their business for years has a price way higher than a reasonable buyer is willing to pay for it. So as a result, their ideas of a comfortable retirement are dashed, as they are confronted with retirement funds which are significantly less than they need for the remainder of their time on this mortal coil. Managing your expectations as well as those of your loved-ones is critical when planning the exit from your business. So where is the silver-lining in all this? There are a few things you can do as a business owner to give yourself a chance at a beneficial exit. Here are a couple of things to think about: - Know your business value now - Know your number (how much money do you need to fund the lifestyle you desire when you sell up) - Know what you are going to do when you have exited (there is little point in exiting to spend time travelling in a motorhome if you have never tried a holiday in a motorhome.) - Know how dependent your business is on you - Have a plan to extract yourself from your business, while still having the business create value for its stakeholders If this has sparked an cord of concern or interest for you, feel free to DM me and we can explore this further for your business. Until then, Be blessed

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We submitted Benefits in Kind forms P11D to HMRC together with the accompanying employer's declaration form P11D(b). All forms submitted on time, all submitted online using software, with successful submission receipts received for all from Government Gateway. No penalties for late filing. Job done. But earlier this week we received lots of brown envelopes from HMRC, each containing paper forms P11D(b) and paper requests for the Class 1A National Insurance to be paid, for each employer client. The covering Class 1A NIC letter/payslips were each dated 21 July 2024 - more than two weeks after the P11D filing deadline stated within the letter/payslips and two days after the pay by post deadline. This would appear to be a total waste of time and public money for HMRC to send paper forms P11D(b) by post even though they will have known that the forms were successfully received by HMRC before the filing deadline, and by online submission, for each employer client. This is not new - these paper forms have been received in the post each year for employer clients long after the event, despite online filings year after year. The two HMRC envelopes enclosed with the forms were provided for us to (1) send the completed forms P11D and P11D(b) to HMRC; and (2) to send a cheque for the Class 1A. It is as if the forms were not already submitted online and the Class 1A NIC had not already been paid online. I wonder how many employer's still pay their Class 1A NIC by cheque? But more importantly, why has HMRC not recognised we submitted the forms long ago and clients paid their Class 1A NIC liabilities often long before the deadline? Certainly the pattern of online filing and online payment for our clients has been in place for all the years that the facility has been available. If this is the experience of other accountants up and down the land then I am sure the money could have been better spent providing meaningful public services - including properly resourcing the HMRC helplines for both agents and taxpayers. Let's hope that the extension of Making Tax Digital will bring some efficiency savings and some joined up thinking. Here is a small selection of the HMRC envelopes. With all P11D compliance finalised long before the paper deluge hit the mat, the only instruction left to follow is on the reverse of the white envelopes: 'recycle'. Doh! #HMRC #TaxRescueMan #helpwithtax

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I think I broke a record yesterday… 💥 It was the shortest tax planning meeting I have ever had. It was 20 minutes…🤯 You may think whaaat how is that even possible give value and explain everything that is needed in such a short time. This client has quarterly check in meetings of 30 minutes over zoom where we go through the quarter results, tax estimate for the year among other things - yes very efficient! So when it comes to tax planning we are just double checking what we have already done and adding in some year end adjustments. Disclaimer this was a very small company that has only just broken even after depreciation etc so no addional strategy needed but we still needed to check and give him the assurance he wasn’t going to get a surprise tax bill at the end of the year. Moral of the story - tax planning doesn’t have to be super complicated and lengthy. Your clients want this from you, the hand holding and explaining it to them so that they have one less thing to worry about. #taxplanning

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For any business it is vital that we continue to learn and develop and as times change so do clients needs. BlythSinclair Business Solutions Ltd is no exception and neither is the accountancy profession that we are part of. Digitalisation of accountancy has arrived and it is the near future going to be expanded upon further. For some businesses this prospect sounds daunting but it need not be. Change however is not something to be feared but embraced. It is only when we step out of our comfort zones and take up the challenges that we realise what we truly are capable of. Adopting that mindset is also true in all aspects of our lives. So on that note I am proud to announce that BlythSinclair Business Solutions Ltd has after some investment now been appointed a Xero Certified Advisor. Over the coming weeks we will be showcasing some of the clients we have had the pleasure of working with in this area and how we have been able to assist businesses grow and develop. #BlythSinclairBusinessSolutionsLtd #MiltonKeynesAccountants #XERO #Makingtaxdigital #Xeropartners #helpinglocalbusinessgrow #continuingdevelopment

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Businesses fail due to a lack of cash. So what can you do to mitigate this? ⬇️ Reduce payment terms - 14 days or below should be your standard, if a client wants to extend these then they need to compromise elsewhere. 📒 Keep on top of credit control - send auto reminders 7 days before the invoice is due, chase up overdue payments & don't be afraid to follow through with late payment charges / removal of service for persistent non-payers 💳 Get an overdraft in place - it gives you some breathing room when things get tight & reduces sleepless nights! 👀 Review your accounts regularly - cancel unnecessary subscriptions, keep track of your monthly outgoings & know how much your business costs to run.

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