Latest News

Changes for Fundraising Charities

You may have heard about some significant changes in the charity sector.  In July 2016 The Fundraising Regulator (FR) took over responsibility for the Code of Fundraising Practice.  The code sets standards and promotes good practice and compliance in the sector.  The FR is responsible for keeping the code up to date and investigating complaints against fundraising charities.

Macmillan Coffee Morning Cheque Handover

This morning Audit and Assurance Director Karen Rae presented Sue MacDonald, the Fundraising Manager for Macmillan in Cumbria, with a cheque for £1504 following a hugely successful firm-wide Macmillan Coffee Morning. 

Karen said:
‘I am delighted to be handing over this cheque to Macmillan. Each year we get behind the coffee morning as a firm and it’s fantastic , that together, we can raise such a significant amount to help with the valuable work that Macmillian do.’ 

Specialist vehicle manufacturer back on the road

The business and assets of Penman Engineering Limited, the Dumfries based developer and manufacturer of specialist vehicles which entered administration on 31 August 2016, has been sold to the directors of Martin Williams (Hull) Limited – a company specialising in build, repair, maintenance, refurbishment and hire of vehicles.

M&A: The wave before a crash?

If Donald Trump’s improbable victory and the EU referendum has taught us anything (other than the ineffectiveness of prediction polls) it’s that things are ever changing.

Despite a backdrop of global instability, the number of completed merger and acquisition deals is not indicative of a crashing, or even wavering market.

The Marmite effect

It’s frequently said that inflation is the enemy of the investor, but what is it? It is commonly defined as the increase in price of general goods and services, so this article looks at how inflation manifests itself and how it can be good and bad.

Many economists expect inflation to rise in the months and years ahead and when it does it’s felt in the general cost of living, doing business, borrowing money and on bond yields, to name but a few things.

Will you be pushed into Inheritance Tax (IHT) charges?

Recent studies show that one in 65 adults in the UK is now a millionaire. With this rise in people’s fortunes, together with the freeze on the current Nil Rate Band this means that potentially more and more people will be pushed into Inheritance Tax (IHT) charges.

The current threshold for the Nil Rate Band is £325,000 and this has been frozen until 2021. This means that people who have wealth in excess of this amount will find their loved ones suffering IHT at 40% on the excess over this amount in the unfortunate event of their death.

The view from the forensic team

Last time we were pleased to announce the arrival of our new forensic team so in this blog we thought we would give you a flavour of some of the cases they are currently working on.

Matthew Geale leads the team and specialises in claims arising from commercial litigation, intellectual property infringements, professional negligence and personal injury.

His current cases include:

New tax-free childcare scheme goes online early 2017

For a number of years now HM Revenue and Customs have tinkered with various initiatives to provide tax relief for the childcare costs incurred by families. For working parents, the relief available can be a valuable increase to their take home pay.

The Government is launching a new tax-free childcare scheme, now scheduled to be introduced early 2017. The new scheme will eventually replace the existing relief for employer supported childcare and childcare vouchers, which will be phased out.

Why clients are giving the thumbs up to cloud accounting

It was whilst I was having a coffee with a business partner recently that the subject of cloud based accounting packages once again came up. My business partner commented how more and more of his clients were presenting their accounting information using such packages.

I was quick to point out that Armstrong Watson is a Xero Platinum Partner and we have been actively encouraging clients to move on to this product for some time now as we are strong advocates of this method of maintaining accounting records.

Should I stay or should I go

For those of you who know the 80s really well like me, you could be forgiven for thinking this blurb is going to be about the fab 80s Combat Rock album by the Clash!  Now this would be a brilliant subject, but another is a tad more important. 

Many of us can’t wait to leave school and start earning the bucks, but hey, no sooner do we do that, we are wondering when we can retire!  I will leave advice on saving for a healthy retirement to our Financial planners!  But there is a lot that can happen in between.