HMRC furlough mistake adds to employers’ burden

With only ten days left before the deadline for submitting CJRS claims, HMRC has announced they have uncovered a mistake in their calculations “that could mean claims have been over or understated.”

As a result of this, employers are being urged to recalculate their CJRS claims if they used the calculator before 21 January, the following applies:

  • The claim contained employees who are not on a fixed salary
  • The employer used an employee’s pay for January 2019 as reference pay, instead of 2020
  • The employee’s pay was different in January 2019 to January 2020.

If the re-calculation produces a different figure to the claim already submitted for January 2021, the employer will need to take the following action:

  • Where the claim was too high, this should be corrected in the next CJRS claim submitted, or alternatively, the employer can make a repayment online to HMRC
  • The claim was insufficient, the employer should call the HMRC helpline to amend this by 1 March.

If, however, the employer uses their employee’s January 2020 pay in the CJRS calculation, no correction is needed.

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How to avoid paying £130,000 in VAT registration fees if you export to EU

Small businesses are currently taking the impact from Brexit. If you are a small business owner that sells to EU countries, you will now face having to register for VAT in each EU country they sell directly to. This could therefore cost tens of thousands of pounds to carry this out.

Not only will small businesses need to carry this out, but they will also need to have a physical business representative in each country.

These two actions “could leave small businesses with a bill of £130,000 just for the right to pay VAT in each territory.”

Glancy suggests a way you could work around this,  “all you need to do is establish a European office in a business-friendly EU county and then ship your goods into a warehouse for distribution to the wider EU. Therefore, you become an EU taxpayer.”

For more information on this, click here. 

Rishi Sunak offers more help to 1.4m firms repaying Covid loans

With the lockdown continuing as well as the Covid loans, many loans were due for repayment. Rishi Sunak has now extended the length of the loans from six to ten year under a “pay as you grow” initiative.

“Under the new arrangement announced businesses would have the options of:

  • Extending the length of the loan from 6 years to 10
  • Making interest-only payments for six months, with the option to use this up to there times throughout the loan
  • Pausing repayments entirely for up to six months.”

For the full story and more information, click here. 

Stamp duty holiday deadline ‘is making us nervous’

With the deadline for the stamp duty holiday coming to an end on the 31st of March, many homeowners who are still in the selling process fear their sales will not be complete before the deadline.

Zoopla suggested that a sudden drop-off in sales is looming when the stamp duty holiday ends.

Reports call for customers who are already in a transaction to still receive the stamp duty benefit when they complete. This is to allow sales to carry on after the stamp duty, reducing the sharp drop off sales and allow the property market to stay afloat.

For the full story, click here. 

Half a million businesses at risk of collapse without more support

Fears increase as reports predict more than half a million business are at risk of collapse by the spring if the government do not extend COVID business support.

Every size of business has been impacted however, small businesses are most at risk of bankruptcy. Reports suggest that the chancellor should us the March 3rd Budget to extend the furlough schemes that are set to end in April.

For the full story, click here.