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No, it’s not the Cattle Information Service. Or the Care Identity Scheme. In our world, it’s the Construction Industry Scheme. 🔨👷‍♂️ It’s HMRC’s way of saying “we don’t trust anyone who works in the construction business”. Sorry, but that’s the short of it. 😒 I don’t personally believe the trades are any more or less […]

What is it? And do you care? Back in the olden days – OK, before 2011 – you could pretty much put as much as you liked into your pension. And get some juicy tax relief on it, equal to your top rate of tax. So, if you earned £60K, you were a Higher-Rate taxpayer.

What’s been going on at Penguin HQ this week? Well I think it’s fair to say that even after taking a couple of days off, we’ve been more productive here at Number 16 than they have been at Number 10. And the thought of yet another budget before the end of the year is giving

So you want to ‘Go Limited’? Don’t f**K it up. [If you want a printable PDF version of this guide, click here to download] IS A LIMITED COMPANY YOUR BEST OPTION? A limited company has several advantages. The chief one is that liabilities and debts are ‘limited’ to the company rather than falling on you

What’s been going on at Penguin HQ this week? Something that drives me nuts – mainly because it’s me who has to unpick the whole thing – is business owners who think bookkeeping is a piece of p*ss and why should they pay someone to do it for them. (This isn’t a plug for me

What’s been going on at Penguin HQ this week? Aside from the “fiscal event” aka mini-budget, the big thing we’ve been talking about with clients this week is how the VAT threshold is slowly choking off some small businesses. We’ve also been looking at what your company’s ACTUAL rate of inflation is. Tip: it’s different

What’s been going on at Penguin HQ this week? The big thing we’ve been talking about this week is how some business get paid promptly for the work they do…and some do not! Why is there sometimes such a big gulf between DOING THE WORK and GETTING PAID? And does it have to be like

Employment allowance – what’s that all about then? Simply put, it’s a tax break for small employers like you. If you’re an employer and pay anyone more than c. £12K a year, then you’ll need to pay “Employer’s NIC” on their salary, at a rate of about 15%. That can rack up pretty quickly –

What’s been going on at Penguin HQ this week? First off, a client asking if they can use Xero to manage their personal/household finances, and make sure they know where their money is going. YES YES YES! Xero is perfect for this. You won’t need all the bells and whistles of “full fat” Xero, so

Barely a week goes by without someone looking to sell me – or my clients – something. The problem is, it’s usually a copy-and-paste faceless introduction lifted from their sales spiel, or a request to book a meeting without first working out whether it’s a total waste of time for us or them. It’s a