All Money talk articles – Page 7
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News
Pay on display
The EKW PAYEPeople Annual Forecourt Wages Report 2010It’s a month later than usual, but we have crunched the pay numbers from September to see what forecourts were paying their hourly-paid staff. This is the 13th year that we’ve done it, but for any readers not yet familiar with this report ...
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News
The taxman cometh?
Hard on the heels of recent moves by HMRC (Revenue and Customs) affecting several million PAYE taxpayers who had innocently believed that they’d already paid all their tax, only to find some unwelcome brown envelopes arriving in their post, come rumours from some tax specialists that the taxman’s next target ...
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News
The right side of the law
Beware the Border Agency’s been busy targeting illegal workersFrom the newspapers it’s easy to get the impression that nothing much happens in Britain during the long summer holidays. But just a quick trawl through the BBC’s recent news archives is quite revealing. There are all of the ’local’ stories ...
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News
Snakes and ladders
Working capital it’s not all wet stock! Following our look at the effect of wet-stock holdings vis-à-vis retailers’ cash flow last month, a number of retailers have contacted us with their own views on some of the factors that are impacting on their ...
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News
Supply and demand
Wet stock management art and scienceDespite a few localised falls during June, in the main pump prices were still hovering around the 120.9/122.9ppl mark on many forecourts with little, if any, suggestion that they’d be coming down again.In recent weeks a number of independent retailers have reported anxious phone ...
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News
Law and order
All change as new government arrives?As we all knew at the time, the March 2010 Budget was likely to be out of date before the ink on it was properly dry, with the General Election due just six weeks later. Now after the protracted political horse-trading following the most unusual ...
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News
Tax demands attention
Tax your government needs you! You will have no doubt seen in the news that over 400 bosses of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) have signed a letter to stop next year’s planned National Insurance rise. The general feeling is that the proposal ...
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News
Budget update
Budget 2010 part oneAlistair Darling’s Budget on March 23 may well have been his last such presentation. But it’s just as likely to be merely the first ’Budget’ this year, as whoever is in power after the General Election will almost certainly have another go at raising taxes and ...
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News
Timely reminders
VAT returns to go online within next few weeksIt seems like an age since we first brought this to your attention, but it’s really now just around the corner. If your next VAT quarter starts on April 1, you’ll be required to file the return for it online, and pay ...
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News
Sterling work
If you’re in deep water...A recent report by corporate rescue and restructuring specialist Begbies Traynor suggests that some 140,000 UK businesses were showing "real signs of financial distress" at the end of 2009. Its prediction is that with the VAT increase at the start of this year, and the likelihood ...
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News
Tactical taxing
Well at least he left the VAT rate alone...Perhaps the biggest relief in the Chancellor’s Pre-Budget Report in December was that he resisted the temptation of any further tinkering with VAT rates, leaving us with the already-anticipated return to a standard rate of 17.5% from the start of this month. ...
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News
New Year, new VAT rate
Watch out: standard VAT rate back to 17.5% from January 1 2010 As if the Christmas and New Year period wasn’t busy enough in the retail world, this year you have another job to add to your ’to do’ list. A year ago the government announced a temporary reduction in ...
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News
Staff matters
Are all your employees entitled to work here?In an industry which has traditionally seen a large proportion of short-term and ’casual’ workers, the recent publicity involving the Attorney General, Baroness Scotland, and the employment status of her Tongan housekeeper should serve as a reminder to all employers that they have ...
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News
Wage winners and losers
The EKW PAYEPeople Annual Forecourt Wages Report 2009It’s that time of year again. For some it means party conference time; while others are preparing shop displays for Halloween and Bonfire Night; and those with poetic souls revel in the glorious colours of autumn.Here, we take a measure of what forecourts ...
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News
Sick and tired?
== Do you have a ’sick note’ on your team? ==Every football supporter knows of the stars nicknamed ’sick note’. These are the guys who seem to spend at least half a season in the physio’s room. These are the ones who come back from a long injury lay-off and ...
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News
Paper-less trail
== EFT payments bunch up - what’s your experience? == Have you noticed anything ’odd’ in relation to your debit or credit card receipts in recent months? Some retailers claim to have seen a change in the way their banks are paying them, particularly the debit card receipts. ...
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News
Does not compute
== HMRC IT problems (Part one...) == Anyone familiar with the history of government IT developments over the past 40 or more years shouldn’t have been too surprised to see the recent announcement by HMRC of some forthcoming disruption to their computer systems arising from an upgrade of the ...
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News
Paying your way
== Minimum Wage to rise == The National Minimum Wage for adults (employees aged 22 and over) will increase to £5.80 an hour from October 1. The government has accepted the Low Pay Commission’s (LPC’s) recommendation of a 7p increase from the current rate of £5.73 per hour. ...
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News
A Budget but no bonanza
== Banks still playing the game by their own rules == The government has been urged to clarify the levels of lending that banks are making to small businesses. The call came from the Forum of Private Business (FPB), which said more must be done to scrutinise the ...
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News
Taxing times
== The VAT-man is back on the road - this time with new powers == Up until a few years ago most cash businesses - and that included forecourts - used to expect a routine visit from their local VAT office every 12-18 months. For some time following ...