Money and tax
VAT, PAYE, corporation tax, business rates and the bank manager. What a small British business actually owes, when, and what happens if it cannot pay.
VAT, PAYE, corporation tax, business rates and the bank manager. What a small British business actually owes, when, and what happens if it cannot pay.
- R&D relief, and what actually counts. Most rejected R&D claims are not fraud. They are ordinary competent work described as if it were science, by an agent paid a percentage of whatever they can get through.
- Small claims, and whether it is worth it. Issuing a claim is easy and cheap. Getting the money from somebody who has none is the part nobody tells you about before you pay the fee.
- The signature that puts your house behind the business. A personal guarantee is a separate contract between you and the lender. It survives the company, it survives your resignation, and it is negotiable before you sign.
- Invoice finance, and what it really costs. Invoice finance turns a ninety-day debtor into cash this week. The advertised rate is a fraction of what it costs, and getting out is harder than getting in.
- Buying a van without the cash for a van. Hire purchase and leasing look similar on the monthly figure and are completely different by the end. What you own, what you can claim, and the total nobody adds up.
- Business grants, and the ones worth the paperwork. Most advertised business grants do not exist. The ones that do are local, small, and want match funding you have to find first.
- Raising money under SEIS and EIS. The reliefs belong to your investor. The qualifying conditions, the advance assurance and three years of not doing anything clever belong to you.
- Break-even, and the number of covers or jobs it takes. Break-even expressed in pounds tells you nothing useful. Expressed in covers, jobs or customers a day, it tells you whether the business can work at all.
- VAT in a shop that sells all sorts. A basket with a loaf, a bottle of squash and a pack of pens has three VAT rates in it. Retail schemes exist because working that out per sale is impractical.
- The VAT you no longer charge. From one March morning, subcontractors stopped collecting VAT they had been using as working capital without quite realising it. Many did not notice until the cash ran out.
- Getting paid without the twenty per cent taken off. Twenty per cent of every labour invoice, held by HMRC until your return is filed. Gross payment status hands that money back, and one late return takes it away again.