Higsons Chartered Accountants

08/02/2022

WE ARE HIRING!

Higsons Chartered Accountants are looking to recruit a full time Bookkeeper/Assistant Accountant for our Farnworth office.
This is an attractive package, including competitive salary, generous holiday entitlement and pension.
Experience of working in an accountancy practice is essential.
If you are interested in working for our fantastic team, please send your CV to [email protected]

23/02/2021

The VAT deferral scheme goes live today

It is an option to pay the deferred VAT payment from last year in instalments over the next 11 months. This is due for payment in full by 31st March 2021 unless you join this scheme. Businesses have until 21 June to join, however the later you join, the less instalments it can be paid over.

Join by Maximum number of instalments available
19 March 2021 11
21 April 2021 10
19 May 2021 9
21 June 2021 8

Find out how to pay VAT payments deferred between 20 March and 30 June 2020. You can pay now or join the VAT deferral new payment scheme.

22/01/2021

🚨🚨🚨IMPORTANT INSURANCE NEWS🚨🚨🚨

Many businesses were previously denied pay outs by their insurance companies for Covid-19.

Recently the supreme court ruled in favour of an FCA court case meaning businesses with business interruption insurance are in fact covered for Covid-19 and are due pay outs.

If you have business insurance and have been impacted by Covid-19 it is worth checking with your insurance companies whether you can now make a claim.

We have already had a couple of clients be told they can make a claim but they had to contact the insurance company so don't miss out!

06/01/2021

Grants going forward during the lockdown:

With the length of restrictions and all the various names of grants we have had many clients ringing to work out what grants they should be receiving going forward.

Any business that remained shut from 02nd December should have continued to receive the Local Restrictions Support Grant. All the councils we have come across so far are processing these automatically without the need for a new application. There should have been one payment covering 02nd December - 29 December

Going forward some councils are doing 1 payment every 4 weeks and others are doing 2 weekly payments (like Bolton Council).

This grant should see your business receive the following amounts based upon your rateable value for the business premise:

Rateable value of 15K and under - £667 every two weeks
Rateable value of over 15K & below 51K - £1,000 every two weeks
Rateable value of £51k and over - £1,500 every two weeks

There is also a new grant announced that you will have to apply for through the local council, this additional support grant is a one off payment and you will be entitled to the following based upon your rateable value;

Rateable value of 15K and under - Up to £4K
Rateable value of over 15K and below 51K - Up to £6K
Rateable value of £51k and over - Up to £9K

This grant is not yet live for applications but we advise you keep checking your local council's site.

Finally for anyone who is not liable for business rates but is impacted by Covid there are additional discretionary support grants you can apply for via your local council.

24/12/2020

We are now shut for Christmas and will reopen on the 4th January.

We want to thank Tapaz Restaurant & Bar for providing food to the office last week allowing us to enjoy a lovely christmas meal alternative this year.

Wishing everyone a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year from all at Higsons!

08/12/2020

Additional Support Grant Application - 17th December 2020 Deadline (Bolton Council)

For businesses who couldn't access the LRS Grant through their local council because they didn't have a rates bill, you can now apply for the Additional Restrictions Support Grant through Bolton
Council's website.

If you were forced to close, a business in the hospitality/events sector that doesn't have a dedicated business premise, market traders etc. can all apply for this grant.

This is a discretionary grant so it is well worthwhile applying if you were impacted by the local lockdown and haven't received any grants so far.

https://www.businessbolton.org/news/article/10/financial-support-due-to-covid-19?newsID=10

If you are under a different council's jurisdiction you will have to check their site for the scheme.

Financial Support due to Covid-19

20/11/2020

** An Urgent Warning for Self-Employed ** (Please share to make people aware)

A small minority of self employed traders were sent an email from HMRC asking if they had stopped trading to clarify whether they are eligible for the SEISS Grant.

If you received one of these emails you need to respond by Today otherwise you will not be able to claim for the future SEISS grants becoming available.

Please check your emails (including the junk and spam) for any communications from HMRC checking whether you are still trading, if you have one you can follow the link below to respond if you are still trading.

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/tell-hmrc-if-youve-stopped-trading-and-review-your-eligibility-for-the-self-employment-income-support-scheme

As always be careful when looking for emails from HMRC that any you open are genuinely from the revenue.

Use this form if you received an email from HMRC, asking you to confirm if you’ve stopped trading so we can check if you were eligible for the grant.

09/11/2020

The Local Restrictions Support Grant (Closed) allows businesses that pay rates to claim funding from their local council if they are forced to shut or are severely impacted by the national lockdown.

For the 28 day lockdown your business can apply for the following

Rates value under £15K = £1,334
Rates value between £15k and £51K = £2,000
Rates value £51k and above = £3,000

You must apply through your local council, many are now live and we expect the rest to follow suit in the near future. Below is a link to the Bolton Council web page where you can apply for the LRSG.

Business rates (national non domestic rates) relief is a discount on your bill, you will need to meet certain criteria to receive it.

29/09/2020

An update from Bolton Council indicates they expect to go live with the local lockdown grant by the end of the week. This is £1000/£1500 for those businesses forced to shut / to do takeaway only for every 3 weeks these restrictions are in place. We will contact clients we believe are eligible.

24/09/2020

Rishi Sunak has announced his winter measures to support businesses. Exact details and guidance on the measures have not been released yet but we have a general idea of what the new measures are.

New Job Support Scheme - From 01st November the government will cover a third of 67% wages where staff hours have been reduced. This requires staff to still work a minimum 33% of their usual hours with the employer and government contributing towards the hours cut bringing a staff members wage up to 77% of their usual pay. (Limits do apply on amounts)

The Self-Employed grant is to be extended, if your business is impacted by a reduced demand due to Covid-19 you will be eligible for a further grant equalling 20% of your average monthly profits for 3 months, this will cover November 2020 - January 2021. A further grant will be available for February 21 - April 21 to be decided at a later date.

The VAT rate cut offered to the tourism and hospitality sector will now be in place until 31st March 2021.

If you deferred your VAT bill during April 2020 and June 2020 and may struggle to pay the bill by 31st March 2021 you will be able to get to a time to pay arrangement allowing you to pay it off over 11 further months until March 2022 interest free.

Self-assessment payments deferred that were originally due in July 2020 and the amounts that will be due in January 21 have also had their payment deadline extended until January 2022.

18/09/2020

With Bolton in a local lockdown many businesses have been forced to shut once more. The government did announce that for every three weeks a business is forced to shut due to local restrictions they will receive a grant of £1,000 / £1,500 dependant on the size of your business and appears to be based on the rateable value.

This will be administered by the council, we here at Higsons are keeping an eye on the council site for further information and will contact clients we believe are eligible once we know more on the process.

Another key point is that the councils were provided further funds so if your business does not have a rates bill and was not eligible for the £10k/£25k rate grants issued earlier in the year you can still apply for a discretionary grant if the business has been impacted by the local lockdown.

We found last time that the discretionary grant window was only open for a short time period and so will be keeping an eye out for our clients on when this goes live and updating our page.