Sustainable Growth - The National Trust guidelines My lawyers, Messrs Sue, Grabbit and Runne, are on full alert after the National Trust shamelessly pilfered my accountant metaphor and called on the government to go for green, not grey, growth, concentrating on green jobs, sustainable food production, clean energy and the protection of nature, heritage and outdoor space. They set out 7 red lines which must not be crossed during the [...]

VAT and mastectomy bras - a pedant writes "As a result, we have looked into the VAT ruling on surgical bra’s and why some bra’s, including our own Marianna style and several of those from other companies, such as Marks & Spencer and Nicola Jayne, are VAT exempt." Eurosurgical website "please remember to tick the VAT exemption box which you will see at the top of your order process in [...]

  Skarlette women win prestigious award and co-host an award ceremony Exciting times for our client Skarlette, whose founders Kate and Heather bring personal lived experience to bear on the mastectomy lingerie market. At the prestigious Best Businesswoman Awards, held at Wembley on 30th September, Skarlette won the silver medal for Best New Business. Many congratulations to Kate and Heather on what will hopefully be the first of many awards [...]

The Growth Plan - the ultimate test of trickle-down economics It wasn't a Budget, but it was more radical than any Budget in recent memory in pursuing a tax-cutting agenda. It was also memorable for Kwasi Kwarteng saying that he was not interested in the redistribution of wealth, which is a quote I am sure he will find quoted back at him ad nauseum. So here is a summary of [...]

Introduction There are 11,900 businesses in the UK which are already required to report on their greenhouse gas emissions and energy use under the Streamlined Energy and Carbon Reporting ("SECR") system. For quoted companies this covers worldwide emissions and usage, and for larger unquoted companies and limited liability partnerships it covers UK emissions and usage only. The natural reaction to being one of the many businesses exempted from SECR is [...]

Promises, promises - craving some certainty in tax I have spent a fair amount of time over the past month considering the implications of the April 2023 corporation tax rise, and in particular the likely impact of the return of the associated company rules on our clients. In simple terms, the main rate of corporation tax is set to rise to 25%, with the current 19% rate retained for the [...]

The road to cultural hell is paved with good Treasury intentions "Whenever I hear [the word] 'culture'... I remove the safety from my Browning!" Hanns Johst - Nazi poet and playwright - quote often misattributed to Goering, Goebbels and Himmler. Nobody who wants to make serious and easy money thinks the best way to do so is to run an orchestra, even in pre-COVID times. And even with Nadine Dorries as [...]

Tax consequences of salary sacrifice It is becoming increasingly common for employers to offer their employees flexible remuneration packages, which typically involves a suite of benefit options which could be taken as alternatives to set amounts of salary. Because benefits are not subject to employee's national insurance, and because the employee has the option not to have the tax on the benefits collected during the tax year through the PAYE [...]

Business property - relief for inheritance tax and how not to lose it Business property relief can be massively important as a means of mitigating inheritance tax, as it often amounts to an effective exemption from tax for a trade or limited company shares. So you need a strategy to make sure that you are eligible for it and remain so throughout your lifetime, which is not quite as straightforward [...]

Whatever you think of Gordon Brown (wrong place at the wrong time, be careful what you wish for etc) he did one very important thing for the UK economy, which was to cede control of interest rate policy to the Bank of England. Unusual as it is for a politician to voluntarily opt for less power over something important, I think this has been very important to economic stability over [...]