John’s Summer Blog 2015

It is always a sign of Summer in my household when we have planted the red geraniums which is a feature of our garden, this has been done slightly later this year because of the weather but at the time of writing this it is warm and the long hard winter seems a distant memory.

We are sorry to have lost Alex Robinson in recent weeks having progressed through his examinations well he has now moved on to a larger Company with long term career prospect. We wish him well but are please to report that we have two new trainees starting with us this Summer. Michael and Alina who are both studying for the Association of Accounting Technician examinations.

Sadly Alex, from Oxfordshire, is unable to join us as expected, reasons beyond his control and it is a disappointment but we still maintain a hope that he will be able to join us at some point. If not this year then into next. This therefore means I continue to work full time and oversee all my clients affairs ably assisted by Practice Director Vanessa and our Accounts Manager Nicholas together with a further 9 support staff.

Vanessa is well advanced in putting together Auto Enrolment Schemes for those clients with employees and if you need help in this direction please do not hesitate to make contact with her.

It is good to feel that the general election is over and done with and the country can return to normal and we now await budget proposals this Summer to see if any significant changes are likely to follow now that we have a majority Conservative government.

Charitable incorporated organisations are proving popular with our clients – this is a Charitable Trust (not a Company) but an entity which can be incorporated under the Charities Act and brings Limited Liability protection to the Trustees.

There are standard models available on the Charity Commission website to use and it is a fairly straight forward procedure to register these. If you still operate under the banner of ‘Old Unincorporated Trust ‘ then you should give serious consideration to transferring and do feel free to contact me or Nicholas in this respect.

One of the incentives brought in by the Conservative government in recent years is the small employers national insurance concession where by £2k of employees national insurance contributions can be rebated. Those clients who have employees have already taken advantage of this.

I am looking into the area of the directors where at the moment national insurance is not paid because the salaries are kept below the threshold. There are one or two interesting tax opportunities here and I will be writing about this in due course.

I wish you all a happy Summer and good holidays.