Monthly Archives: June 2021

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

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What taxes does a business have to pay on its trading activities?

by Joanne McLaughlin • June 11, 2021 • 0 Comments

Originally written by Joanne McLaughlin on Small Business
Companies and self-employed individuals in the UK have a number of obligations in relation to the taxes they may have to pay to HMRC.
It can be overwhelming as to which of these obligations apply to you, given that different taxes are due depending on your circumstances. This can be especially unsettling when you are just starting out in business. This article provides an overview of the main business taxes you will encounter and the circumstances under which you will be liable to pay these.
Corporation Tax
All limited companies in the UK are liable to corporation tax on profits. The profit of the company is, broadly, calculated by deducting items of allowable business expenditure from your turnover figure. Note that there are certain reliefs on corporation tax that may also be deductible.
Corporation tax returns must be filed no later than twelve months after the end of your accounting period, although the tax must be paid within nine months and one day of the account period end.
The current UK corporation tax rate is 19 per cent, although it has been confirmed that this will increase to 25 per cent with effect from April 1 2023.
Income Tax
If

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Winning the Start-Up Series – Henry Acevedo, Fox Robotics

by Partner Content • June 11, 2021 • 0 Comments

Originally written by Partner Content on Small Business
One of the pain points with Brexit was always going to be the shortage of migrant EU workers coming to Britain for the summer fruit picking season. The government is trialling a scheme that would only allow a maximum of 30,000 migrant EU workers into Britain this summer to pick soft fruits and vegetables. It is estimated that 70,000 fruit and veg pickers are needed in Britain each season.
Henry Acevedo, a computer scientist from Colombia, has developed a robot transport system which is about to start trials at a fruit farm. Given that nearly a quarter of any fruit picker’s time is spent carrying produce to collection points, Acevedo and his Fox Robotics team believe they can boost productivity by letting pickers concentrate on just picking fruit.
Being a winner at this year’s Start-Up Series will help turn his childhood passion for robotics into a business that can help farmers avoid fruit and vegetables rotting unpicked in the fields.

What’s your background as a tech entrepreneur?
I’m a Colombian computer scientist with almost 30 years’ experience in industry across many areas, such as telecommunications, working systems engineering, software development, information security, automation and, of

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Half of the UK’s newest business owners are millennials

by Anna Jordan • June 11, 2021 • 0 Comments

Originally written by Anna Jordan on Small Business
Almost half (49 per cent) of new business owners since July 2020 are between the age of 25 and 40.
More than 227,000 businesses were set up by millennials in the past 11 months by 14.2m (1.6 per cent) of people in that age range.
Meanwhile, Generation X (aged between 41 and 56) set up a third of new businesses. Baby boomers – currently aged between 57 and 75 – set up 9.6 per cent of businesses and Generation Z, 16-24-year-olds, launched 7.8 per cent of new companies.
Figures come from a study conducted by cloud accounting company Ember, analysing 400,000 records from Companies House.
Ilford is the most entrepreneurial area in the UK, followed by Manchester and Dagenham. Romford is in fourth, Hayes is fifth and Southall six. This means that five of the six most entrepreneurial places in the UK are London boroughs. However, the capital is 25 on the list for ratio of new businesses to population.

AreaRatio of new businesses to population

Ilford1.5663%

Manchester1.4043%

Dagenham1.2942%

Romford1.2877%

Hayes1.2446%

Southall1.1982%

Slough1.1843%

Aylesbury1.1525%

Watford1.0851%

Reading1.0459%

>See also: 5 of the coolest co-working spaces in Manchester
The most popular type of new business is eCommerce. More than 26,000 new companies registered as ‘retail sale via mail order houses or via