Chartered Accountants of Poynton, Cheshire |
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National minimum wageFrom 1 October 2007 this is set at £5.52 per hour for workers aged 22 or older. The reduced development rate for employees aged between 18 and 21 is £4.60 per hour. The rate for workers who are under 18 and no longer of compulsory school age is set at £3.40 per hour. National Insurance numbersIt is vital that, as an employer, you show full and correct National Insurance numbers on all documents on which you record contributions, particularly when the forms are submitted to HMRC as part of PAYE compliance. If an employee does not know their National Insurance number, you can trace it through HMRC by filling in HMRC leaflet CA6855. If you have doubts over the accuracy of the National Insurance numbers that you hold, HMRC can check and update them for you. The full procedure is set out in HMRC leaflet CA89. Money launderingThere have been changes to the identification procedures (ID) that accountants have to legally carry out on their clients. Until December 2007 this was only required for new clients taken on after 2004. In December this changed, so now we may need to carry out a formal ID check on all our clients. While this is unlikely for long-established clients, we might have to carry out an additional ID check on some clients for whom we do not have sufficient ID details on our files, to satisfy the regulatory requirements. |
Changes to the Companies ActSpring 2008 brings in two big changes to the administration of companies. Company SecretaryThere will be no need for a company to appoint someone to the statutory position of company secretary. Existing company secretaries will have the option to resign if they want to. It follows that new companies have the option to appoint a secretary should they so wish. The company secretary is not seen as a vital position within a company and so is being dispensed with. However, we would recommend caution before dispensing with the position for companies with only one director. If the sole director is incapacitated or dies, having no other company official could cause problems in terms of administration of the company, eg., signing legal documents and access to bank accounts. Filing DeadlinesThe deadline for filing private company accounts is being reduced from 10 months to 9 months. This applies to all company accounting periods starting after 6 April 2008. |
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