Use of home as an office is an increasingly popular trend among the 600,000 new businesses starting up every year in the UK. On the surface of it, there’s lots to like about using your home as your office. There’s no commute, there’s no office rent, there’s no business rates, and there are no business-only […]

Up to 1,000,000 taxpayers missed the deadline on January 31st this year, according to MoneySavingExpert, making late penalty fees an indisputable goldmine for the Treasury. Last year, HMRC wrote off a total of £23million in late self-assessment fines. Accountants and professional bodies across the country are calling for the system to be scrapped but, so […]

A directors’ loan account can be in credit or it can be in debit. If the directors’ loan account is in credit, the company owes you money. If it’s in debit, you owe your company money. Companies borrowing money from their directors happens all the time, particularly when a business is being started or a […]

IR35 is the name of a particular part of the Finance Act 2000 designed to prevent people from avoiding tax by describing themselves as self-employed or freelance when they are, to all intents and purposes, an employee of the company they’re doing contract work for. If you are found to be operating “within the scope […]

Want to go freelance but want someone else to take care of your taxes, paperwork, and allowances? You need to find out about umbrella companies. What is an umbrella company? Think of being a contractor/freelancer using an umbrella company as being in a half-way house between: • being an employee, • and being a contractor/freelancer […]

Mortgages for contractors, although still more difficult to obtain than standard mortgages, are available in greater numbers now than they have been for many years. How hard is it to get a contractor mortgage? It is harder – sorry, there’s no way around that. But it’s not just contractors that have difficulties in securing mortgages, […]

Limited company expenses are used to reduce the level of profitability in your company accounts. That means your corporation tax bill to HMRC goes down. For many new business owners, there can be a lot of confusion about what qualifies and what doesn’t as expenses. Here is the Wise Accountant’s look at the expenses your […]

Setting up a limited company in the UK is straight forward, inexpensive, and remarkably quick. Limited companies offer many advantages over being a sole trader, particularly in the area of keeping and accumulating cash in your business. Welcome to the Wise Accountant’s guide to setting up a limited company What is a limited company? Setting […]

For all contractors – indeed, for all limited companies, sole traders, and partnerships – the art of preparing an invoice and sending it out is one you have to master quickly. How quickly you get paid has a direct correlation with what’s on your invoice, the terms of payment you’ve agreed with your client, and […]

It’s not just the likes of Google, Facebook, and Amazon that offer shares to employees. It happens here in Britain too under something called the Enterprise Management Incentive (EMI) scheme. The long-term business benefits of employee share ownership have been proven as they: encourage staff to stay with a company and go that extra mile […]