One of the largest fixed costs associated with business premises are rates payments to local authorities.

The present system for reviewing rates in England is somewhat antiquated, the last review in England was 2017.

The government had previously undertaken to move to more frequent revaluations, having introduced legislation to bring forward the next revaluations to 2021 – based on 2019 property values. Due to COVID, and to help reduce uncertainty for firms, this was delayed, with the next revaluation set to take effect in 2023 – based on 2021 values.

To regularise the process and move to a three-year review, the government are now undertaking a formal consultation that is timed to conclude Autumn 2021.

If the government are successful, perhaps we will move to a fairer and faster system for valuing rates based on the current use and value of properties rather than that applicable up to five years previously.

If, at the next rates review in England, your rates assessment is increased, you may be able to claim a transitional relief. This means that changes to your rates bill will be phased in gradually if you are eligible. Your council should automatically adjust your bill if you are eligible.

Additional rates reliefs currently available to business rates payers in England include:

• Small business rates relief
• Rural rates relief
• Charitable rates relief
• Enterprise zones
• Exempted buildings and empty buildings relief
• Hardship relief
• Transitional relief
• Retail discount
• Local newspaper relief
• Nurseries discount

Contact your local authority to make sure you are receiving any reductions to which you may be entitled. They will also be able to reassure you that you have had any COVID support grants that you may have been able to claim.

Employers will need to start contributing to work not done by furloughed employees from 1 July 2021.

The update from HMRC is reproduced below:

From 1 July 2021, the level of grant will be reduced, and you will be asked to contribute towards the cost of your furloughed employees’ wages. To be eligible for the grant you must continue to pay your furloughed employees 80% of their wages, up to a cap of £2,500 per month for the time they spend on furlough.

The table below shows the level of government contribution available in the coming months, the required employer contribution and the amount that the employee receives per month where the employee is furloughed 100% of the time.

Wage caps are proportional to the hours not worked.

You can continue to choose to top up your employees’ wages above the 80% total and £2,500 cap for the hours not worked at your own expense.

If you still have employees on furlough now would be a good time to engage in a formal planning process to work out how your business will manage the transition back to you covering all wage costs from 1 October 2021.

Realistically, this should involve preparing a business forecast for at least the next twelve months.

We can help

Let us help you prepare the necessary forecasts and consider your options.

Release from social distancing restrictions, in England, is deferred until 19 July 2021, which for most of us, means no change up to that date. We are still required to work from home when we can and maintain the other Step 3 social distancing provisions.

However, there are a few additional concessions that will apply up to the 19th. We have summarised these below:

• The 30-person gathering limit for weddings, receptions and commemorative events is removed and replaced with any limits set by venues to maintain social distancing guidelines.
• An extension of pilots for large events at higher capacities, including some at full capacity such as the Wimbledon finals.
• Easing rules in care homes, including removal of the requirement for residents to isolate for 14 days after visits out.
• Allowing out-of-school settings to organise residential visits in bubbles of up to 30 children, in line with the current position for schools.

Fingers crossed that come the 19th, infection rates will be under control, and we really can start to get back to normal. Anyone remember what that was like?

If an individual dies and for whatever reason executors or the Treasury Solicitor’s department are unable to track down beneficiaries, the unclaimed estate falls under the care of the Bona Vacantia and Government Legal Department.

The Division publishes a list of unclaimed estates which have been recently referred, but not yet administered, and historic cases which have been administered but not yet been claimed within the time limits for doing so.

You can view the unclaimed estates list by following the download link at https://www.gov.uk/government/statistical-data-sets/unclaimed-estates-list.

In a recent announcement, government sources provided the following advice on this process:

Some people have experienced an intermittent problem downloading the Unclaimed estates list. We are investigating the cause of the issue.

The list is published in a Comma Separated Values (CSV) file format. This acts like a spreadsheet and although it can be opened in any text editor it is best viewed in a spreadsheet application, such as Microsoft Excel, Google Docs or OpenOffice Calc.

If you are looking for a particular estate you can search by using Ctrl-F in your browser, text editor or spreadsheet application.

The list is updated every working day and newly advertised estates appear at the top of the list. After one day of publication, new estates drop into the rest of the list in alphabetical order.

Any estates where the Bona Vacantia division (BVD) no longer has an interest, for example, when a claim to an estate has been admitted, will be removed daily. Estates where the 30-year time limit from the date of death has expired are also removed.

Tax credits applicants should be vigilant and alert to potential scams, HMRC has warned.

In the 12 months to 30 April 2021, HMRC responded to more than 1,154,300 referrals of suspicious contact from the public. More than 576,960 of these offered bogus tax rebates.

In the same period, HMRC has worked with telecoms companies and Ofcom to remove more than 3,000 malicious telephone numbers, and with internet service providers to take down over 15,700 malicious web pages. HMRC responded to 443,033 reports of phone scams in total, up 135% on the previous year.

Anyone doing their tax credits renewal who has received a tax or benefits scam email or text might be tricked into thinking it was from HMRC and share their personal details with criminals, or even transfer money for a bogus overpayment.

HMRC’s Cyber Security Operations identifies and closes down scams every day. The department has pioneered the use in government of technical controls to stop its helpline numbers being spoofed, so that fraudsters can no longer make it appear that they are calling from those HMRC numbers.

You must declare goods that you take with you to sell outside the UK – for example if they are in your baggage or in a private vehicle.

There is a different process if you take goods abroad temporarily (for example samples for a trade fair) or use a courier or freight forwarder.

Most countries have a limit on the value of goods you can bring in duty free.

If you are taking goods to another country temporarily for business reasons and you think you’ll be over the duty free limit, you can usually get an ATA Carnet to avoid paying duty. This includes things like:

• samples to show at trade fairs or sales meetings
• publicity materials
• recorded film and audio
• equipment you need for work like laptops, cameras or sound equipment
• goods for educational, scientific or cultural purposes
• personal effects and sports goods

If you are taking a vehicle, get a CPD Carnet instead.

If your goods have a total value of £1,500 or less, you may be able to make any customs declaration required online. Otherwise, you will need to make a full export declaration.

You will need to show customs your declaration before you can leave and if you are taking restricted goods, take the licence or certificate with you.

1 July 2021 – Due date for Corporation Tax due for the year ended 30 September 2020.

6 July 2021 – Complete and submit forms P11D return of benefits and expenses and P11D(b) return of Class 1A NICs.

19 July 2021 – Pay Class 1A NICs (by the 22 July 2021 if paid electronically).

19 July 2021 – PAYE and NIC deductions due for month ended 5 July 2021. (If you pay your tax electronically the due date is 22 July 2021).

19 July 2021 – Filing deadline for the CIS300 monthly return for the month ended 5 July 2021.

19 July 2021 – CIS tax deducted for the month ended 5 July 2021 is payable by today.

1 August 2021 – Due date for Corporation Tax due for the year ended 31 October 2020.

19 August 2021 – PAYE and NIC deductions due for month ended 5 August 2021. (If you pay your tax electronically the due date is 22 August 2021)

19 August 2021 – Filing deadline for the CIS300 monthly return for the month ended 5 August 2021.

19 August 2021 – CIS tax deducted for the month ended 5 August 2021 is payable by today.

COVID disruption has added a further layer to the business risk cake. Do you know how many of your customers are at risk of failure?

It is estimated that between 20% and 30% of small businesses, and a sprinkling of larger concerns, will cease to trade as we start to emerge from COVID lockdown; if indeed, that is what the politicians and scientists confirm will happen from 19 July.

Additionally, at the end of September, the major source of support for employment, the furlough scheme, is coming to an end. We should expect a significant rise in unemployment following that change.

Which is why we recommend that all businesses undertake a re-assessment of business risk on multiple levels so that services and goods supplied are paid for and bad debts kept to a minimum.

Initially, we suggest you divide your customers into Can Pay, Cannot Pay (they have cashflow issues) and will not pay (bad payers) categories.

Secondly, rank customers as T (transactional) or R (relationship). Transactional customers are concerned about price, quantity, and delivery, i.e., always want more for less. Transactional behaviour is the default position for many businesses in a crisis. Relationship clients are more open to conversations about the value of the goods or services you supply. They will enjoy their business relationship with you and be loyal customers.

Last of all, ranked customers 1 (low) to 5 (high) for risk of failure.

Using this approach, we would like to offer you our support to undertake a formal risk assessment of your customers.

This will enable you to better manage risk with eyes wide open rather than stumbling into situations where work is undertaken, or goods supplied in areas where there are increasing risks and where customers may not have the inclination or resources to pay.

If you would like to undertake a formal review of business risk, but do not know where to start, pick up the phone, we can help.

HMRC have issued the following comments on their adoption of a risk-based penalty strategy for 2021-22. They said:

Following HMRC’s review of the effectiveness of the risk-based approach to late filing PAYE and late payment penalties, we can confirm this approach will continue for the 2021 to 2022 tax year. This means that late filing and late payment penalties will continue to be considered on a risk-assessed basis rather than issued automatically.

The first penalties for this tax year (beginning 6 April 2021) will be issued in August 2021.

Late filing penalties

As in previous years we will also continue to not charge penalties automatically if a Full Payment Submission (FPS) is filed late but within 3 days of the payment date and there remains no pattern of persistent late filing. This is not an extension to the current statutory position on reporting PAYE payments which remains unchanged.

Employers are still required to file their submissions on time unless any of the circumstances set out in the sending an FPS after payday guidance arises.

Employers who persistently file after the statutory filing date but within 3 days, will continue to be monitored and may be contacted or considered for a late filing penalty as part of our risk-based approach.

Late payment penalties

The due date to make PAYE payment to HMRC electronically remains the 22 of the month (or quarter if you are eligible to pay quarterly) following the tax month/period to which they relate. If you pay by cheque or other non-electronic payment methods, you must continue to make payment by 19 of the following month or quarter to which the payment relates.

How to pay your PAYE guidance is available.

If you pay late, we may charge interest on the amount outstanding which will continue to accrue until the total amount is paid.

You may also face a late payment penalty which we will continue to raise using a risk-based approach. This will focus on cases of greatest risk and non-compliant behaviour. There is guidance on how we calculate late payment penalties and how employers can appeal them.

If you have concerns that you will struggle to meet the demands of running your own payroll, we can help. Please call so that we can discuss your options.

First, let’s define these terms.

• “informed” – a decision or judgement based on an understanding of the facts of the situation.
• “guesswork” the process or results of estimating or concluding something without sufficient information to be sure of being correct.

And between these two extremes varying degrees of certainty will apply.

From a business point of view, it makes sense to make decisions based on the informed end of the spectrum. Expressions such as “taking the guesswork out of decision making” make perfect sense.

From an accounting point of view, recording your transactions in a digital format will help you make informed decisions as the magical world of real-time data management opens for you.

For example, at a click of your mouse:

• It is possible to drill down and discover what makes up items of expense.
• You can automate credit control – no point in leaving your cash in customers’ bank accounts.
• Faster access to data means you can control cash-flow more effectively.
• You can determine if your activities are profitable, no more discovering you are a busy fool months after the event.
• You can create and flex budgets to better monitor actual results.
• It is a simple matter to view tax and VAT liabilities and make sure that returns are submitted and paid on time.

Historically, we were great at guesswork; had to be, took an age to create a bigger picture when records were kept manually or on disconnected spreadsheets.

Now we have an opportunity to steal a march on competitors who are slow on the uptake.

Act Now

If you have started on the digital track but are concerned you may not be getting the best out of the process, or, if you are still unsure how to maximise the benefits of computerisation – of being informed – please call. We can help you choose the most appropriate and cost-effective software and create the reports that will help you stay informed.

There may be the odd occasion where you will need to make decisions quickly, and then you may have to drift back towards the guesswork end of the scale; otherwise, get informed, implement and make the most of digitising your business activities.