Inoff the Red

Have you told HMRC that you are self employed? Have they issued you with a UTR number (unique tax reference)? That notification usually comes with a leaflet advising what you need to do to manage your tax affairs. They also send out periodic reminders of self assessment deadlines. HMRC will expect you to know what the requirements are for filing tax returns etc. The HMRC web site does give some pointers if you search business start ups. If you get stuck or want a quick chat about what you need to do, send a PM with your questions and email address/mobil number and I will answer them. As for the "advice" given to you about business items purchased on your credit card, the suggestion that there is a restriction on what you can claim against tax if you only make minimum payments on your CC is absolute nonsense. If you buy a business item on a credit card you have incurred a liability, how you choose to discharge that liability is your decision and it does not affect what you can claim as a business expense. Using a credit card is just a different way of financing your business. You could have chosen to use a bank overdraft, HP or loan.

....and then the vat review will be followed by an income tax investigation. HMRC have an interesting method of dealing with such matters. Given grounds to suspect non disclosure of income, they raise a huge assessment for unpaid tax. The tax evader then has to pay or prove the amount is excessive. It only takes a bitter divorce, dumped girlfriend or dis-satisfied customer to blow the whistle to HMRC.

I'm not sure this is something I would put on a public forum. It may seem harmless until someone asks you for a VAT invoice and then reports you to HMRC when you don't provide one. Holding out as being vat registered and adding 20% would be deemed to be fraud and a criminal offence. On discovery, the reaction of HMRC would be swift, brutal and expensive.

Personally, I would not touch Sage with a 10' barge pole. IMHO it is THE most overrated piece of software. I am Mac based as are many of my clients and find that Account Edge (formerly MindYourOwnBusiness see here.... https://www.visma.co.uk/accountedge ) is much more user friendly than Sage. It is a simple system (that produces cash based Vat returns at the press of button) but it has a number of sophisticated features that can be used if needed and I have yet to come across a service or manufacturing business with needs that cannot be met by it.

Not sure I understand what you mean by this. If you are selling to a VAT registered company, when making a purchasing decision they will ignore vat (because they can recover it) and they will compare the cost of the service provided.

Opt to submit your returns on a cash basis. That way, you only account for vat on sales where the customer has paid. Of course, you can only claim vat on your purchases when they are paid also but it avoids the problem of having to pay vat on sales where you have not yet collected the cash from the customer.

Brace yourself chaps, this could be an academic argument. The VAT threshold is likely to be reduced to levels more in line with other mainline EU countries e.g. Germany €17,500; France - (Services) €33,200; Belgium €25,000; Austria €30,000. There is pressure within the EU to equalise the vat thresholds so that no one has a competitive advantage. (and the deal that Theresa May is proposing is likely to lock us into accepting whatever the EU decides on this matter). Given that the EU derives a large chunk of its budget from VAT collected in EU countries you begin to understand why the EU commissioners are so keen to reduce the thresholds for registration. The more sales that are subject to vat, the more cash goes into their coffers.

My take on this is that the right to cancel gives a 14 day cooling off period in which the client can change his mind and cancel the contract. If the nature of the job is such that it needs to be done within 14 days then the client could cancel right up until the time that you start the job but once the job starts that right to cancel is lost, not least because letting you onsite to do a job would be deemed acceptance of your terms and conditions. It would clearly be inequitable for a client to let you do a job within the 14 day period and then seek to renege on the agreement.(although that is not to say that some clever clogs may not try it). One solution to avoid any doubt may be to add a rider to the cooling off clause to the effect that the cooling off period extends to the earlier of :- a) 14 days from the date of the contract, or b) in the event that the required start date is within the 14 day period, x days before the required start date. Where X would give you a bit of notice if they did want to cancel and avoid a wasted trip to a client only to be told on arrival that they had changed their mind. Just a thought to put to the Arb Assoc legal chaps.

No written contract? On the basis of the post there is a written contract and if a job was offered on the basis of that contract failure to sign it would hardly be a valid reason to avoid terms contained therein. Most offers of employment are made subject to the terms of a contract of employment and acceptance of the job and subsequent salary payments could be taken as implied acceptance of those terms regardless of whether a contract has been signed. It is not unusual for employees to try and pull a fast one by not signing a contract on the mistaken belief that it absolves them from any responsibility to adhere to the contents. Without wishing to get too involved in legal terms, the broad concept of equitable estoppel is likely to apply which, in general terms, makes it difficult for someone to deny the terms of a contract when they have acted in a way that suggests acceptance and without advising the employer of any objections to the contents. You are right about statutory rights re holiday pay etc, but I was just trying to establish whether you would consider it acceptable if an employer acted in a similarly cavalier attitude to an employment contract. If for example the employer gave an ultimatum to sign the contract or leave would you consider that to be acceptable? As previously discussed, a prospective employee is not compelled to accept a job if they don't like the terms and conditions. Challenge the terms of the contract and have them changed is another option. To accept the job and then try and wriggle out of those terms while maintaining silence about disagreement with those terms is not, imho, an admirable trait. Talk of employment tribunals is one thing, it is now not as cheap or easy to launch tribunal cases and the appetite of "no deal no fee" lawyers to take the case may well be affected if the employee is facing counterclaims arising from clauses in an employment contract incorporated into the job offer and that the employee has accepted, to all intents and purposes, save for signing it.

Oh dear, hit a nerve did I? With respect, I made no assumptions about you but reacted to the information you posted. As I said, it is entirely open to you whether you sign a contract. I was merely pointing out that accepting the job but failing to sign a contract would not necessarily provide the "protection" that you may assume. (It wasn't clear from your post whether you exercised your right not to accept the job...although your reaction to what my advice would have been to the employer suggests that you may have done). I think your comments about capitalism and somewhat aggressive post suggest that it is you that is living in the 18th century. After 20+ years working in corporate recovery sorting out failing businesses, dealing with delinquent business owners and workforces I am immune to insults and there is nothing you can say that I haven't heard already (although it is a few years since I last heard the capitalist/poncing on the back of poor workers diatribe.) I am unsure how to interpret your comment about "self respect" and how that can be consistent with seeking to avoid responsibility for repaying an investment by an employer in an employee. Respect is a two way street, people (employers and employees) that don't show it should not expect it in return.

Oh dear, hit a nerve did I? With respect, I made no assumptions about you but reacted to the information you posted. As I said, it is entirely open to you whether you sign a contract. I was merely pointing out that accepting the job but failing to sign a contract would not necessarily provide the "protection" that you may assume. (It wasn't clear from your post whether you exercised your right not to accept the job...although your reaction to what my advice would have been to the employer suggests that you may have done). I think your comments about capitalism and somewhat aggressive post suggest that it is you that is living in the 18th century. After 20+ years working in corporate recovery sorting out failing businesses, dealing with delinquent business owners and workforces I am immune to insults and there is nothing you can say that I haven't heard already (although it is a few years since I last heard the capitalist/poncing on the back of poor workers diatribe.) I am unsure how to interpret your comment about "self respect" and how that can be consistent with seeking to avoid responsibility for repaying an investment by an employer in an employee. Respect is a two way street, people (employers and employees) that don't show it should not expect it in return.

But did you take the job? It is open for you to reject employment but if you accepted the job but have merely refused to sign the contract you may be on dodgy ground if , at some point in the future, you say that you don't consider yourself bound by the terms and conditions set out therein. With regards to the enforceability of a repayment clause, there is no statutory right for an employer to recover training costs but if an employer includes a clause to this effect in a contract of employment then (providing it is not unreasonable) it will be effective. Unless you have specifically expressed your refusal to accept the term regarding training (and that has been accepted by the employer) then I suspect it will be deemed to be a valid clause in the contract of employment. As a matter of interest, if your employer decided not to pay overtime/holiday pay etc as set out in your contract and used the fact that you hadn't signed it as justification, what would you think? Attitudes to this issue will split depending on whether you are an employee or an employer. Employers will be fed up of people accepting jobs, being trained up at the employers expense and then leaving to use their qualifications to earn more dosh without giving the employer who trained them a chance to recover their investment in giving someone skills. This may sound harsh but if a client of mine had an employee that wouldn't sign a contract because of recovery of training costs clause I would advise them to flick you before the end of the probationary period. Experience shows that for someone with such a one sided attitude it is generally a matter of time before the employee becomes a problem and needs a compromise agreement to get rid.

Agreed, although the treatment of pick ups is likely to change following the introduction of some high spec models with all bells and whistles by some manufacturers that HMRC perceive to be designed to circumvent the concession to what was intended to relate to basic work vehicles

Again, potentially misleading. The statement regarding the allowability of the purchase against corporation tax is correct but it does not address the potential benefit in kind cost to a director who has personal use of the asset. If it is a genuine pool vehicle and has no personal use at all then the BiK issue may not arise. If however, the vehicle is to be used personally then there is a potentially hefty personal tax cost that will arise from the use of a company vehicle. The benefit in kind will be based on the LIST price of the car when NEW (including vat and accessories, regardless of whether it was bought used). The benefit will depend on the vehicle emissions but could be expensive. For example a vehicle with a cost new of £50k and emissions of 171gm will have benefit in kind value of £18,500 creating a tax cost of £3,700 for a 20% tax payer or £7,400 for a 40% tax payer. There is a further flat rate benefit of £8,658 if the company pays for private fuel. So, you could buy a bargain vehicle second hand and be faced with a combined annual benefit of £27,158 for each year that you own the vehicle and a benefit of this magnitude would almost certainly put you into the 40% tax bracket creating an annual tax cost of £10,863. (and don't forget the company will have to employers national insurance on the benefit also). The days of company cars being a benefit died some years ago.

I think your comment is potentially misleading. For the avoidance of doubt, if you operate a flat rate scheme the rate of VAT that you must charge on your sales remains 20% so if you invoice a customer £1,000 plus vat, the invoice total is £1,200. The scheme percentage relates to the vat that the trader has to pay over to HMRC. If the example above was your only sale then you would "only" have to pay vat of £126 to HMRC. (The flat rate percentage is applied to the total value of sales including VAT at 20% and i am assuming that you are correct that 10.5% is the stated rate for your type of work). I must admit that I have not yet come across a business that derives a cash benefit from operating a flat rate scheme. I have however been contacted by numerous businesses that have received substantial penalties from having misinterpreted the flat rate scheme rules/choosing the wrong flat rate to apply and found that they get a demand for unpaid vat going back years. For those that use a flat rate scheme don't forget to check the various changes introduced in April 2017 for limited cost businesses. See here https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/vat-notice-733-flat-rate-scheme-for-small-businesses/vat-notice-733-flat-rate-scheme-for-small-businesses Also, ensure that the correct flat rate is being applied because they do change and if your business covers two different sectors, you need to choose the appropriate rate for each sector.

Well if ever you were in doubt about Teresa May and the tories selling out on Brexit read this https://order-order.com/2018/07/12/brexiters-warn-white-paper-includes-binding-ecj-jurisdiction/ So much for Brexit means Brexit and the manifesto commitment to leave the single market.

Remember when the British legal system was the envy of the world? I recently spent three weeks on jury service and at the end wondered why on earth the case had been brought. Bad though it was , it was nothing compared with this (and while you read just muse on whether the attitude of the police and CPS may have been coloured by the politics of the accused. Read this and weep! https://www.conservativehome.com/platform/2018/07/richard-holden-my-nightmare-experience-at-the-hands-of-the-police-and-the-cps.html

Park where you fancy and if Plod turn up, tell them you are a tinker and part of the travelling community. That should be enough for them to leave you in peace for a month. Well thats what happens in the Peoples Republic of Nottingham on a regular basis. This week a library was closed because a group of gyppos pulled their caravans across a pavement, up and over a fairly steep grass bank and parked on a cricket pitch ( fixtures cancelled until further notice). The somewhat aggressive behaviour of said travellers was such that staff and visitors of a nearby library felt threatened. Now, imho the police should have dealt with the threatening behaviour but their solution to the problem was to close the library until further notice. Funny old world innit?

There is no standard rate of return because each individual has their own perception of risk and what an acceptable return should be. £50k on bank deposit would earn peanuts but is almost risk free. The return on £50k invested in a machine depends on how you manage to utilise it. To help you in your decision making process I suggest the following:- 1. Get a quote from a finance company for what you have to pay on a monthly basis if you leased or HP'd the kit. (Do this even if you have the cash in the kitty to buy outright). 2. Talking the info from 1 above, add in your other business costs/ required drawings and compare the total with what your current turnover is. For this exercise I would include the capital repayment as well as interest (because for the duration of the agreement to need to generate the cash to make the repayments). If the total exceeds your current turnover, how big is the gap and determine how easy it would be to cover it from new income generated by the new kit. The day rate is likely to be determined by the market so how many days work would you need to get in order to plug the gap and is it achievable? Do you have the cash reserves to keep going while you build up the customer base? 3. The problem you describe following the replacement of a machine arises because subconsciously, people tend to base their costings on the longest possible life of the asset. If you follow step 1 above and finance an asset over say 3 years, if the asset has a 5 year life you have a 2 year opportunity of building up a deposit for machine replacement (or you could take more out yourself). The key to the decision making process is to be realistic about likely take up of your new service. How competitive is the market for that service? Does demand exceed current supply or will your entry into the market cause the competition to reduce their prices to maintain a competitive advantage?

Not necessarily, it depends on whether you are self employed or a director/employee of a limited company. For the self employed, the determining factor is what constitutes a normal pattern of work rather than distance from home. Claiming for meals (breakfast & dinner) associated with an overnight stay may be ok, claiming for lunches may be subject to challenge.

If Obama had arranged the meeting with Kim Yung he would have been given the nobel Peace Prize by now and had the worlds media sucking up to him even more than they used to.

"They suspect the demise may be linked to climate change, although they have no direct evidence of this" I suspect the cause is the the amount of BS spread by industry that has grown up making squillions from the "climate change" ponzi schemes. Alternatively it could have been because once while walking I saw a magpie and didn't say "hello Mr Magpie". Of course, I have no direct evidence to support this.

Interesting question, he would have his own insurance and office costs plus he probably employed his missus to do the books.