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Disbursements VAT case ruling goes against Law Firm

A recent ruling in the first tier tribunal has gone against law firm Brabners, resulting in an HMRC VAT assessment of £68,000 being upheld.  This case should be of significant interest to all law firms providing conveyancing services and recharging fees incurred for property searches.

The case revolves around the treatment of electronic property searches procured from well known provider Searchflow.

Harnessing the Skills of the Younger Generation

Many of us who have or have had children at secondary school will know how it feels to be advising and coaching our young people in their career choices.

This will involve at least a consideration of further education, and we know if that choice is a college or university “out of area”, there is a strong possibility that our young people are likely to gravitate to job opportunities in the central belt or further afield.

Maximise the hidden resource in your business

One of the most pressing challenges for any business leader is to ensure that they have as much information as is required to make the best decisions for their company.

Sadly, “full knowledge” isn’t always possible, and there’s a measure of “discomfort” that arises from making big decisions without it.  Part of the “deal” of being a business leader is that, hopefully, the financial rewards compensate for the discomfort and uncertainty that comes with this decision-making responsibility.  

Tax advice for setting up a new business

According to Luke Johnson, one of Britain’s most successful entrepreneurs and the author of Start It Up, “Running your own business is easier than you think”.  But what happens if, like many people you are a little cautious about trading in your current job and taking the plunge? What if, instead, you want to keep working for your current employer whilst running your own business on the side?  If so, there are some considerations and future actions you need to be aware of in respect of tax.

HMRC collects extra £3.4bn from SMEs following VAT enquiries

In order to maximise its revenue from compliance investigations, HMRC is putting increasing pressure on small and medium sized businesses. As a result, many businesses could be at risk of enquiries into their tax filings.

For example, data recently disclosed by HMRC shows they collected £3.4bn in extra tax through analysis into SMEs for underpaid VAT alone.

What have we learned since the last financial crisis?

Oh how time flies! It’s now been ten years since the last financial crisis, which many considered was the worst since the Great Depression in the 1930s.

So what went wrong?

10 top tips to help cope with a VAT Visit from HMRC

Although the days where regular, even annual HMRC VAT visits to businesses are seemingly long gone, in the past 12 months I have seen a steady increase in the amount of VAT enquiries being raised by HMRC, with a significant number of these enquiries arising from a VAT visit.

It is important to manage these visits in the best possible manner and the intention of this article is to give you some guidance around this in the form of the following 10 top tips:

Measuring the success of your business with financial KPIs

We see quite a varied approach by businesses when looking at how they measure their success. Different companies will take a different approach in terms of what they measure and the frequency with which they do it, but regardless of size, industry or where you are in your business life-cycle; there are some common Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) which all businesses should be measuring.

Richard Andrew Shortlisted for British Accountancy Awards’ Partner of the Year

Armstrong Watson Partner, Richard Andrew, has been announced as a finalist at the prestigious British Accountancy Awards held annually in London.

Richard – based at our Kendal office - is the only Cumbria based accountant to represent the category at the awards and will be up against competition from some of the country’s biggest names in accountancy. 

We can help you with your pensions said the caller!

I was intrigued and shocked over the week-end when a telephone caller said they wanted to help me sort out my pension affairs.  Thankfully I am up to speed with the pension legislation (ok automatic enrolment, final salary schemes and my own defined contribution scheme) but I know enough to know when I am receiving a bogus call.  The caller said they had all my pension pots information; another words my pensions from previous employments that I didn’t transfer into any one single pension.  So I calmly asked them to advise me of what I had.  To my surprise they did know the detail of two, wh