Newsletter February 2019

CONTENTS

Pensions Auto Enrolment – do you know about the triannual anniversary?
A reminder of the new National Living Wage and National Minimum Wage rates
Cursed? Some bizarre excuses for late tax returns
Concerned about cybercrime?
Changes to VAT on non-refundable deposits 
App of the  month – reducing currency transfer fees
GS Financial Services Ltd – a word of advice

Pensions Auto Enrolment – do you know about the triannual anniversary?

For those clients for whom we do not act as payroll bureau, we remind you that after three years Pensions Auto-Enrolment requires that you both re-enrol those employees who may have previously opted out as well as making a new declaration of compliance to the Pensions Regulator. This process is obligatory for all employers.

Some of these triannual anniversaries are now coming around. You have a six month window starting 3 months before the anniversary in which to make the re-enrolment and eight months in which to make the re-declaration to the pension regulator.

For example if the original staging date was 1 April 2016;
The re-enrolment window opened on 1 January 2019
The window closes on 30 June 2019 and the re-declaration deadline is 2 September 2019

Cursed? Some bizzare excuses for late tax returns

HMRC annually release a list of their most bizarre excuses from people who didn’t submit their tax returns on time and tried to find excuses to avoid the penalties. Read more

Concerned about cybercrime?

If you are concerned about how cybercrime might affect your business, the SW Regional Cybercrime Unit are running a free event in Exeter on 21st March 2019 from 5.30pm – 6.30pm for advice on how to prevent your business being at risk.

Discussions of current and future threats and how to defend against them.

Click here to book your free place.

Changes to VAT on non-refundable deposits

If you are in the hospitality industry or deal with other non-refundable deposits, your business may need to change the way it deals with the VAT in the instances that the goods or services are not used or collected.

Before the 2018 budget, the VAT from these non-refundable deposits was treated as a kind of compensation for the loss suffered as a result of the cancellation (unless it was for a guaranteed reservation where the business is contractually obliged to keep the service available), and therefore not VATable.The VAT could then be reclaimed in the instance that the supply did not take place.

However the legislation now takes a different view such that from 1 March 2019 the deposit is a deemed consideration of supply and therefore subject to VAT. So if the service/goods are not taken up, VAT still has to be accounted for to HMRC. For further more detailed information on this read more

App of the month – Reducing currency transfer fees

TransferWise

If your business needs to transfer money abroad then you can save on hefty bank fees with TransferWise.

Businesses are offered a fair mid-market exchange rate and a small, clearly transparent, fee no more than 0.5%.

This is how it works with Xero. Read more