All owner-operated businesses in United Kingdom

2026-10-02

Company car or staff health cover? In 2027 you pay two years of National Insurance on them in one

If your company gives anyone a car, a van, free fuel or private medical cover, all of it moves onto the payroll from 6 April 2027. The tax and the employer National Insurance will be worked out and paid every pay day, not a year later on a P11D form. Nothing about the rate changes. The timing does, and HMRC itself warns about the side effect: in the 2027/28 tax year you pay last year's Class 1A in one July lump and start paying this year's every month. One year, two years of the bill. The rest of this page puts that on real numbers, then covers the bit owners tend to miss, which is what it does to your own payslip and to the perks your staff never knew were taxed.

2026-09-27

She owned half the company. One line on a 2015 form said her shares had no vote, and it cost her £46,260 when she sold

No. If your shares carry no vote at a general meeting, the sale of them does not get Business Asset Disposal Relief, however much of the company you own. A tax tribunal said so again on 9 September 2026, and the case is worth five minutes of your time because of how ordinary it is. Two people ran a small firm. One of them held half the shares. A form filed at Companies House in 2015 described her shares as having "no voting rights". She says nobody meant that. It did not matter. When she sold, HMRC took the relief away and she paid £46,260 more tax. At today's rates the same mistake would still cost her about £27,750.

2026-09-02

Unfair dismissal drops to six months in January. The date that counts is when the notice ends

Nothing leaves your bank account on 1 January. This change moves something else: how expensive it is to reverse a hiring decision you got wrong. Today a new employee cannot bring an ordinary unfair dismissal claim until they have worked for you for two years. From 1 January 2027 that drops to six months, and the ceiling on what a tribunal can award comes off altogether. So the person you hire this month has a six month window instead of a two year one, and anyone already past six months on your payroll is inside the new rule from the first day of the new year. The date that decides which rule applies is not the day you make the decision. It is the day the employment actually ends.

2026-08-26

Your deadline is not 17 November. It is whatever date your confirmation statement is due

Verifying your identity for Companies House is free and takes about fifteen minutes. Skipping it can end with your company bank account frozen, which is the only reason it is worth your attention today. The trap is the date. Almost every article points at 17 November 2026, the end of the twelve month transition. Your actual deadline is your own confirmation statement date, and for most companies that falls earlier. Companies House will not accept the statement until every director has verified, so one slow co-director stops the whole filing.

2026-08-04

Can you renew your lease? It comes down to one paragraph most owners have never read

Rent is your biggest fixed cost after wages, and one paragraph in your lease decides whether you get any say in it. If your lease was contracted out of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1954, then on the day the term ends you have no right to stay, no right to a new lease and no compensation. If it was not contracted out, you have all three. Below: how to tell which one you signed, what each is worth in cash, and what the reform now out for consultation would change. This is England and Wales law. Scotland and Northern Ireland work differently.

2026-07-13

The 2026 business rates "tax cut" is really a rise for a lot of small firms. Here is how to tell which one you got

Here is a rare bit of tax news that sounds like good news: from 1 April 2026 the government cut the business rates multiplier for shops, cafes, salons and gyms in England and called it a permanent tax cut. So why are some owners opening a bigger bill than last year? Because the headline compares your rates to a price you never actually paid. Here is how to work out, in about two minutes, whether your bill went down or up, and what to do either way.

2026-07-09

Making Tax Digital for Income Tax has started, and the real cost is not the software

If you trade as a sole trader or take rental income, the way you report it to HMRC changed on 6 April 2026. Making Tax Digital for Income Tax is now live for the first band of people, and it is coming for almost everyone else over the next two years. Most of the noise is about which software to buy. That is the small question. The bigger one is what this does to your time, your cash, and quietly, what your business is worth.