Monthly Archives: November 2020

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Rishi Sunak urged to help self-employed company directors

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Originally written by Timothy Adler on Small Business
Lobbyists, trade associations and experts have joined forces to urge Rishi Sunak to help company directors frozen out of government Covid-19 support.
A consortium of professional bodies has urged the chancellor to consider proposals for a “Directors Income Support Scheme” (DISS), which would mirror the Self-employment Income Support Scheme (SEISS) under which sole traders can claim up to £2,500 per month.
This is a last-ditch attempt for the Treasury to change its mind before this week’s Spending Review.
>See also: When and where to apply for the new 80% self-employed grant
Until now the Treasury has balked at helping self-employed directors of limited companies who pay themselves in dividends, claiming it would be too difficult to separate company income from passive income, such as property and shares.
This is despite company directors paying themselves through through dividends being the standard accounting structure used by around 2m small UK limited companies, ranging from those with sole owner directors to micro businesses, which collectively employ 7.5m people.
Some see the Treasury’s mulishness as a disguised attack by HMRC on self-employed company directors, who often pay less into National Insurance and pay corporation tax instead of income tax.
It is estimated that around

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Keeping 2021 simple for small and medium-sized enterprises

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Originally written by Partner Content on Small Business
Whatever form Brexit takes, it’s going to make life more complicated for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). But when placed in the context of a recession caused by a continuing global pandemic, it makes the route ahead incredibly uncertain – especially for those businesses trading overseas. Open Banking provides clues to a way forward for SMEs, but some major opportunities have been missed thus far. With a unique understanding of Open Banking, Currensea is providing SMEs with simplicity and transparency over their international transactions and helping them find the clearest route through 2021.
SMEs in 2020
In many ways, SMEs are the heart of the UK economy; in 2019, there were 5.9 million SMEs in the country, providing employment to 16.6 million people and seeing an estimated turnover of £2.2 trillion.
Up to 4.72 million of these SMEs trade internationally and a quarter of them have had to slow or halt overseas trading due to the restrictions of the pandemic. In fact, SME exports have dropped by around 10 per cent – this alone has cost the UK up to £20 billion.
But the pandemic is not the only complicating factor for SMEs; Brexit has been hanging

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