As the saying goes, “nothing’s as certain as death and taxes”. Whilst all of us in working life are guaranteed to be taxed, there are always changes to tax rates, thresholds and wages that affect businesses and those who are registered as self-employed. We’re now in the tax year of 2019/20, so here’s some of what you need to know. Personal allowance and increased brackets A personal allowance is how much you can earn before you start paying income tax. In the 2018/19 tax year, the annual untaxable allowance was £11,850. However, with the 2019/20 changes, this allowance has been increased to £12,500. For example, if you earn £20,000 a year, only £7,500 of your salary would be taxed at the basic rate of 20%, as the first £12,500 would be exempt. The tax rate thresholds have increased also: As you’re self-employed, you pay tax on your profits, which is

Running a business can be tricky at the best of times. With so much to do, organise and look over, sometimes it can feel like you are drowning in paperwork and to-do lists. As a small business, growth and expansion are extremely important; it is what will help your business achieve its desired goals and what will make your company successful.  Growing your business from scratch, however, is not always easy and it is important that, as a business owner, you have certain tools in place to help you with this. Not all business owners have top bookkeeping or accounts preparation skills, and it can be particularly difficult to run the financial side of your business by yourself. Bookkeeping is the recording, storing and retrieving of financial transactions for a company.  As a small business owner, you’ll likely be juggling multiple tasks at once, and therefore many business owners outsource

Job retention Scheme update While the Government is currently paying 80% of workers’ salaries up to £2500 a month for some 8.4 million workers under its furlough scheme, it has made clear that it cannot continue to provide this unprecedented level of support for an indefinite period. Now the Chancellor has announced that, although the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme (CJRS) is set to run until October, employers will be asked to begin to pay a share of the wages. In August, they will be expected to meet National Insurance (NI) and pension contributions while the Government continues to meet the 80% of salaries. For the average claim, this represents 5% of the gross employment costs the employer would have incurred had the employee not been furloughed. In September, the Government percentage will be reduced to 70% (a cap of £2187.50) and in October to 60% (a cap of £1875) with employers expected to make up the 10% and