Pay less Tax
Pay less to your Accountant
Take control of your Company

ContractorInfo Tip - Business Broadband

If you have Home Broadband you may only be able to claim a proportion of it (if any) as a business expense, whereas if you have Business Broadband you can claim it ALL back as a valid expense. This will often mean it costs you less than seemingly cheaper Home Broadband deals.

FREE Mobile Broadband with selected Business Broadband deals. Click Here for details. This is open to new and existing customers.

Existing BT Business customers can also get discounts on contract renewals.

Mobile Phones for Business Use

Keywords:

First a cautionary tale

I have talked to quite a few people who have had their accountant tell them that they should charge their personal mobile phone to their business (including line rental) and I have had to tell them that this is wrong. I once worked for a small company which had told their their employees to get a mobile for business use only and charge all calls and line rental to the business. They were audited by the Inland Revenue who told them that this was counted as a perk since they were not company phone, so the employees had to pay back tax and National Insurance on the line rental portion of the bills. Remember that your accountant is not always right and in the end you are responsible for what your company does and will have to pay up if you are found out.

Business mobiles

You can get some quite good business deals out there and you can transfer your personal number across to your business phone; a quick browse through the personal mobile deals shows that they are about equivalent to similarly priced business deals, but since the money paid out from your business has not had tax and National Insurance deducted (whereas the money in your pocket has), they work out a lot more tax effective - trust me! So if you are on a PAYG at the moment or are coming to the end of your existing contract it is well worth a look at the business deals.

No votes yet

Claim Your VAT Refund From BT


I was on the BT Business web site a couple of minutes ago and the word Refund caught my eye.

Never being one to throw away the chance for some free cash I investigated further.

With BT services you pay for line rental (whether for a fixed line of Broadband) in advance. This means that you may have paid for your line rental for the current quarter before the VAT changes and, therefore, paid VAT for the entire period at 17.5% instead of 15%. Don't worry. Go to this page on the BT web site to find all about the VAT refund and get a link to the form to claim your refund.

Remember, if you renew your BT Business Broadband contract (for an additional 12 or 24 months) you should get a discount for the duration of the contract and you may be eligible for FREE mobile broadband too.

This only really applies is you are not VAT registered or are registered for VAT under the Flat Rate Scheme for Small Businesses. If your are fully VAT registered then you will claim back your VAT through your VAT return in the normal way. Non-business customers will get their VAT refund as a credit against their next bill.

Average: 3.5 (2 votes)

Pre-Budget Report (November 2008)


There are a number of items which Contractors should be aware of which were announced in the Pre-Budget Report (PBR):

  • VAT
  • Corporation Tax
  • Income Tax and NIC

VAT

The main thing that hit the headlines in all the newspapers (and the thing that could have an almost immediate effect on Contractors) is the change in the VAT rate. From Monday 1st December the VAT rate will drop from 17.5% to 15%. All invoices issued on or after Monday will have to be calculated using the new VAT rate.

Average: 5 (1 vote)

Lost Passwords Provide Access to Detail of 12 Million People


On-line services for the HMRC web site were shut down yesterday (1st November) after a data stick containing the user names and pwords that could give access to the personal and bank details of over 12 million people and businesses was found in pub car park in Cannock, Staffordshire. The data stick belonged to subcontractor Ator Origin who are based near the pub where the data stick was found.

The Government Gateway system was shut down as a precautionary measure which the data on the stick was essed. Security experts said that the data stick contained usernames and pwords used to test an old version of the Government Gateway system and that the data was encrypted so could not be used to access current data.

Average: 6 (1 vote)

Funny Stuff


Here's a brand new area of the site I hope to expand on.

It will contain cartoon, e-mails, office screw-ups and anything else I can think of - anything to brighten up another day of work.

If you have anything to add, then register and post it on the site. Please, don't post anything too offensive as it will be removed, so it will be a waste of your time and mine.

As a sample, here's the daily Dilbert cartoon. Sorry of you cannot see it, but it is blocked by some firewalls.


Average: 2.8 (5 votes)

Budget Bits 2008

Sorry for the delay in writing something about the budget but some of the figures are hard to track down (and my clients are insisting that I do some work).

Anyway, I am not going to cover the usual stuff about beer, cigarettes and car tax as it is not really business related. The confusing rules about Capital Gains Tax will only apply to those companies that have assets (or if you intend to sell your company) and new rules about Husband and Wife companies failed to appear, so what does that leave us? There are a few things that I have been asked about that have not made the headlines elsewhere.

Average: 7 (1 vote)
Syndicate content