This is a huge debate with far too many words and discussion floating around. So what does Philip Hammond’s budget actually change? Here is a summary of his proposals of relevance to the average self-employed person.
Personal tax implications are as follows:
·         Tax-free allowance on share dividends to reduce from £5,000 to £2,000
·         Personal tax-free allowance to rise to £11,500 this year (from £11,000), then slowly up to £12,500 by 2020.
·         The higher rate tax bracket will rise from £43,000 to £45,000.
·         A new £1000 allowance against property income and the same for trading income will be introduced from 6th April 2017.
·         Class 4 National Insurance contributions for the self-employed to increase from 9% to 10% in April 2018 and 11% in April 2019.
·         Class 2 National Insurance, currently applicable once self-employed people make a profit of over £5,965 a year, will be scrapped in April 2018.
·         The above will cost the average self-employed person around £240 extra per year, although those earning below £16,250 will end up paying less.
·         Employed people will not experience any change to their National Insurance contributions and nor will the employers.
A useful budget calculator tool to see how you will be affected can be found on http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-17442946
Another important change to note is that Corporation tax is being reduced to 19% from 6th April 2017, with the goal of reaching 17% by 2020.
If you would like to discuss this further or to discuss your accounting needs for 2017/18 please feel free to get in touch with our friendly team on 01275 873948 or by using our contact form.
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EXCITING NEWS: We're moving office on 7th November 2016!

Our new premises will offer more space and are located just off the prestigious Hill Road, hopefully ensuring that our clients have a pleasant experience when popping in to visit us.

​The new address is 6 Hill Road, Clevedon, North Somerset, BS21 7NE
​Our telephone number and email addresses will remain unchanged

So the craze of avoiding expensive hotels and for individuals to make a bit of extra spending money has taken of with the huge and rapid expansion of the Airbnb network!

​It's easy to do, relatively safe as people are vetted and money taken through a secure website and a good way to meet new people whilst making pocket money on one side and saving money on expensive accommodation on the other side.

Should this income be declared? YES!
​Is tax due on all the income received? NO!

There are 2 different types of rental: a room within your property or an entire self contained property (house, flat, etc.)

​If you're renting out a room within your home then this income qualifies for "Rent a room relief" meaning that the first £7500 is tax free.

​If you're renting out a separate property from your home then you will need to produce rental accounts. This takes all the income received over the tax year, then all relevant expenditure is removed from this income total to give you the taxable profits that need to be declared to HMRC.

​If you would like any help with calculating your accounts to check whether you should be paying tax on your Airbnb income then please get in touch with our friendly team who shall be happy to assist you further on 01275 873948 or by email at enquiries@mendipaccounts.co.uk

As you're probably aware, some changes were made affecting Landlords with affect from 1st April 2016. Notably, these concern the purchase of buy to let properties and the calculation of tax due from rental income.

​Stamp duty has risen by 3% from previous price bands. To explain this in numbers, historically a property purchased with a value of under £125,000 would have incurred 0 stamp duty, now this will incur 3% of the value thus £3,750. This is now 5% for the following £125,000 and 8% for values above this.  Quite an unfortunate rise.

​With regards to the tax calculation at the end of the tax year, please note that the wear and tear allowance of 10% of rental income has now gone. This means that careful records need to be kept of actual expenditure incurred on the property and renewal of equipment and other relevant costs. Please keep all receipts and invoices. If in doubt, best to have the documentation and show us to ensure that everything allowance is claimed. The tax calculation will be based on actual income and expenditure.

​Please feel free to call one of our friendly team members on 01275 873948 or email us at enquiries@mendipaccounts.co.uk if you need any further guidance on this and we shall be happy to assist you :)

Good news for limited companies as a nice little time saving idea has been created by Companies House to simplify administrative requirements. As from the 30th June 2016, the current Annual Return will be replaced by the new "Confirmation Statement".

​This all new statement can be updated as many times as needed during the year yet only charged once.  For many companies this means that it will simply now be a task of clicking to confirm that the company details havent changed during the year.

​The main change though will be the addition of the "PSC" (Persons with significant control) information which now needs disclosing onto the public register.

​As always, here at Mendip Accounting Solutions we're here to help, advice and to make your life easier:) Any questions please feel free to call us on 01275 873948 or email us at enquiries@mendipaccounts.co.uk

 
You creative people have the ideas and drive to get yourself out in the market. Well done for living your dream and taking this brave step.

Here at Mendip Accounting Solutions, we’re ready to help you: to support your business growth and to take care of the accounting element which so often gets left behind. Our passion lies in providing all the accounting support a growing business needs to allow the key driving forces behind the trade to focus on their core work.

We have devised a user-friendly tool to help you get off the ground and to keep good accounting records so that you can track your financial position, keep an eye on expenses and even work out whether accepting a job is profitable for you. Please get in touch now on 01275 873948 or by email at enquiries@mendipaccounts.co.uk to request your FREE personalised accounting workbook.

Contact us also for some friendly guidance and advice in how to manage your accounts to comply with legal obligations, to be meaningful and tax efficient.

​So you’ve started out your own business, everything is very exciting and times are busy! Lots to get in place, ideas flowing, obligations mounding, life is great but so hectic. You don’t necessarily want to pay an accountant, just need to get that bookkeeping done which is a simple enough job so can be handled in house.
If in doubt always ask for a second opinion.  If advice given sounds surprising or amazingly beneficial or detrimental to the business there may be a problem.  Somethings in life you just can’t afford to play with. If you diddle the tax man or file incorrect accounts this is ultimately your responsibility and can lead to massive fines and imprisonment. A risk definitely not worth taking. Use your intuition and find the right person who clearly understands your business and is excited and enthusiastic to work with you over the long term.

If you would like to run your business accounting needs by us then please get in touch using the contact form or by calling our friendly team on 01275 873948

The focus in everyday accounting is keeping the books tidy, paying suppliers, ensuring customers pay you and that you have enough working capital to keep your business moving.  Year-end requirements mean that annual accounts must be produced and filed. But what happens after you’ve done this, or indeed throughout the year with your beautifully prepared accounts?

These documents are a mine of useful data for the easily pleased management accountant who loves to crunch numbers to extract relevant information to help you to drive your business forwards into growing and developing more than you could have even imagined.
Quarterly reviews of the profit and loss situation enable any abnormalities to be signalled up and any trends appearing to be quickly identified and exploited or eliminated as appropriate. Action can be taken sooner rather than later to avoid getting into huge profits or losses unexpectedly at year-end. Forecasting, budgeting, cash flow planning and margins are just a few tools used by your friendly management accountant to assess the health and growth of your company.
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Another technique which can aid your business is the creation of scorecards personally designed to identify key performance indicators and areas of particular concern. Analysis is always at the heart of a management accountant, analysis that leads to understanding and strategic planning for the future. Cost/benefit, net present value, profit margins, costings, pricing, deciding which options are best …