Tag Archive for Brexit

Hot Business News Today

Calls to extend complex Brexit Support Fund

by Anna Jordan • July 29, 2021 • 0 Comments

By Anna Jordan on Small Business – Advice and Ideas for UK Small Businesses and SMEs

The £20m Brexit Support Fund to support struggling businesses after Brexit has only given out £6.8m of its allocated funding.

Individuals and organisations are calling for the fund, now closed to new applications, to extend to a second round.

Cabinet Office Minister Michael Gove launched the Brexit Support Fund in February, encouraging businesses that trade with the EU to claim up to £2,000 each to help pay for training and professional advice. However, figures show that businesses who applied only received £1,555 rather than the £2,000 maximum.

Hilary Benn MP, co-chair of the cross-party UK Business and Trade Commission, said the support scheme was “more of an obstacle course, which discourages applications by making SMEs jump through too many hoops for a very small return”.

Businesses were only able to apply if their overseas trading was purely focused on the EU, including Northern Ireland, with their imports and exports not going anywhere else. Business groups did lobby to have the rules relaxed so that firms that were predominantly trading with the EU could apply.

>See also: Top five tips for SME exporters in a post-Brexit world

HMRC, who

Hot Business News Today

Calls to extend complex Brexit Support Fund

by Anna Jordan • July 28, 2021 • 0 Comments

By Anna Jordan on Small Business – Advice and Ideas for UK Small Businesses and SMEs

The £20m Brexit Support Fund to support struggling businesses after Brexit has only given out £6.8m of its allocated funding.

Individuals and organisations are calling for the fund, now closed to new applications, to extend to a second round.

>See also: Top five tips for SME exporters in a post-Brexit world

HMRC, who

Hot Business News Today

Top five tips for SME exporters in a post-Brexit world

by Nick Ismail • July 12, 2021 • 0 Comments

By Nick Ismail on Small Business – Advice and Ideas for UK Small Businesses and SMEs

According to research from DHL Express, 24% of UK SME exporters who already export or plan to in the future state they have stopped selling to some EU markets, with 6% of British businesses stating they have stopped selling to EU-markets altogether.

The research looked at the challenges facing small businesses in all sectors across the UK and paints a nuanced picture. When asked if they thought they’d export more or less over the next year compared to the previous 12 months, SME exporters were completely divided, as 25% forecast an increase while 28% anticipate a decrease.

Since 1 January 2021 a number of exporting incentives, such as the SME Brexit Support Fund, have been on offer from the government. The research found that, while 30% of exporters surveyed believed these support measures were helpful, a significant 24% were not aware of their existence, indicating some small and medium sized businesses may be missing out on important trading opportunities.

Lack of consumer awareness of the additional Customs charges is reported as a concern, with nearly half of exporters stating it was a challenge. However, despite this, only 28%

Hot Business News Today

Top five tips for SME exporters in a post-Brexit world

by Nick Ismail • July 9, 2021 • 0 Comments

Originally written by Nick Ismail on Small Business
According to research from DHL Express, 24% of UK SME exporters who already export or plan to in the future state they have stopped selling to some EU markets, with 6% of British businesses stating they have stopped selling to EU-markets altogether.
The research looked at the challenges facing small businesses in all sectors across the UK and paints a nuanced picture. When asked if they thought they’d export more or less over the next year compared to the previous 12 months, SME exporters were completely divided, as 25% forecast an increase while 28% anticipate a decrease.
Since 1 January 2021 a number of exporting incentives, such as the SME Brexit Support Fund, have been on offer from the government. The research found that, while 30% of exporters surveyed believed these support measures were helpful, a significant 24% were not aware of their existence, indicating some small and medium sized businesses may be missing out on important trading opportunities.
Lack of consumer awareness of the additional Customs charges is reported as a concern, with nearly half of exporters stating it was a challenge. However, despite this, only 28% of businesses have proactively alerted customers to the

Hot Business News Today

Brexit puts more than third of UK small businesses at risk of closure

by Timothy Adler • June 22, 2021 • 0 Comments

Originally written by Timothy Adler on Small Business
EXCLUSIVE: More than a third (37 per cent) of UK small businesses claim Brexit could result in their business closing, according to research.
More than two fifths (44 per cent) of SMEs say that Brexit will or already has driven their businesses to lay off employees, according to research by business payments firm Equals Money.
More than three quarters (76 per cent) of 1,050 SMEs surveyed say foreign suppliers have increased prices, and more specifically, a third (33 per cent) say suppliers have increased their prices by more than 10 per cent. More than half (53 per cent) say that Brexit could or has resulted in higher shipping costs.
>See also: Half of small business exporters struggling with new rules post Brexit
Tomorrow (June 23) will mark five years since the Brexit referendum took place and the UK voted to leave the European Union by a majority of 52 per cent. Brexit officially came into force in January 2021, but it wasn’t until May 1 2021 that the EU–UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement (TCA) came into effect. The free trade agreement now governs the relationship between the EU and the UK.
>See also: A quarter of small exporters

Hot Business News Today

Just 25% of cash earmarked for £20m Brexit Support Fund applied for

by Timothy Adler • June 11, 2021 • 0 Comments

Originally written by Timothy Adler on Small Business
Less than 25 per cent of the £20m Brexit Support Fund promised to help small business get through Brexit transition has been applied for.
Actual applications for the Brexit Support Fund have fallen far short of initial interest and the scheme due to end in weeks before July.
HM Revenue & Customs has only received fewer than 3,000 applications for the £2,000 grants since March, totaling £4.3m. HMRC had been expecting around 10,000 applications.
>See also: Small business to spend £23bn this year alone keeping Covid safe
According to the Times, businesses are being asked to jump through too many red tape hoops when applying for the Brexit grant.
Michael Gove, the Cabinet Office minister, launched the Brexit Support Fund in March, accepting that businesses needed support to “adjust” to the new import controls, which will be fully introduced on July 1.
The Institute of Export and International Trade, which is providing training under the scheme, said that demand from businesses for support with overseas trading remained strong.
A spokesman put the lower than expected take-up of the scheme, which is open to applications until the end of this month, to the complexity of the process, which is being administered

Hot Business News Today

What can I do if an EU customer refuses delivery of goods sold?

by Christophe Pecoraro • June 7, 2021 • 0 Comments

Originally written by Christophe Pecoraro on Small Business
What’s changed with exports to an EU customer post Brexit?
The most significant changes come as a result of the UK’s exit from the single market and the customs union. Any EU customer buying products from a UK-based retailer are now subject to charges comprising import duties plus courier or postal handling fees. Naturally, the opposite of this is also true, with additional paperwork and costs applying to British consumers purchasing goods from Europe.
Unfortunately, consumer standards are not going to relax whilst retailers find ways of adapting to these new rules. Workarounds do exist and are readily being adopted. But the customs charges and extra paperwork have significantly increased the complexity and cost of shipping products in and out of the EU.
In addition to unwelcome delays, all the added cost has to go somewhere. For businesses that have been unable to cover this themselves, many have had to pass this onto the end consumer. In a period where consumers are expecting online shopping to compensate entirely for the high street experience, these effects are accumulating to a lot of unhappy customers. Suffice to say, for smaller businesses attempting to contend with the likes of

Hot Business News Today

Small businesses selling into EU face £180m in extra red tape costs

by Timothy Adler • May 21, 2021 • 0 Comments

Originally written by Timothy Adler on Small Business
Small businesses that sell into Europe face £180m in extra red tap costs as they get swept up in new EU One-Stop-Shop VAT rules.
The new EU One-Stop-Shop rules, which will be introduced on July 1, are designed to stop an estimated designed to stop an estimated €7bn in annual VAT fraud by non-EU ecommerce sellers, mainly located in China, according to Alavera.
However, the EU One-Stop-Shop changes remove remove VAT exemptions for SMEs and shipments not exceeding €22 (£19), which means about 26,000 UK e-commerce sellers will have to register for VAT in an EU member state for the first time.
>See also: Where to find your £2,000 Brexit Support Fund grant
This will cost a majority of these companies at least €8,000 (£6,900) a year each, or roughly €208m (£180m) annually.
“Now we’re outside of the EU, [the UK has] been lobbed in with VAT-avoiding Chinese traders, and ecommerce companies will pay the price,” Richard Asquith, vice-president global indirect tax at Avalera, told the Financial Times.
UK e-commerce sellers will now have three options when trading into the EU:

Hot Business News Today

Small businesses selling into EU face £180m in extra red tape costs

by Timothy Adler • May 20, 2021 • 0 Comments

Hot Business News Today

A quarter of small exporters cease selling to EU since Brexit transition end

by Anna Jordan • March 29, 2021 • 0 Comments

Originally written by Anna Jordan on Small Business
More than a quarter of small exporters have ceased selling to customers in the EU following post-Brexit transition delays.
The Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) warns that what might have been previously dismissed as ‘teething problems’ could become systemic.
A survey of nearly 1,500 small companies carried out by the FSB found that 23 per cent had temporarily stopped selling to the EU while four per cent had halted sales permanently. Eleven per cent of exporters were said to be considering a permanent halt.
The same proportion had set up or were thinking of establishing a presence in a European country to make the process easier. Around nine per cent may secure, or are already using, warehouses in mainland Europe or Northern Ireland for the same purpose.
Small importers have been particularly hard hit by new paperwork as 17 per cent temporarily halt purchases from the EU. What’s more, a massive 70 per cent of importers and exporters say they have suffered delays when moving goods around the EU in recent weeks. More than 30 per cent have lost goods in transit and a slightly higher proportion have had goods held indefinitely at EU border crossings. Of

Page 1 of 11

1 2 3 … 11 »