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Chartered Accountants of Poynton, Cheshire

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National minimum wage

From 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 numbers

It 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 laundering

There 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.

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Home > Businesses > Our Business is Saving you Money

Our Business is Saving you Money

Accountants at Appletons have stopped literally millions of pounds going to the taxman!

We're still doing it - it's our No.1 business and we can do it for you too.
Six business and saving pointers

When our customers avoid tax by our work we get a great sense of job satisfaction.

For those people in their 30s and 40s, perhaps now breadwinners for the family, and in mid-career or running a business, there are a wealth of planning ideas to help you avoid tax.

Consider the following six strategies before the year end:

  1. Sharing your wealth with your spouse or partner, by splitting capital and income to take maximum advantage of tax allowances and rates.
  2. Drawing up a business exit plan, which includes profit maximisation, business structure, valuation, disposal, retirement planning and investment strategies.
  3. Restructuring your personal and business debt. Is it time to review your loan arrangements or pay off your credit cards?
  4. Are you investing in a pension policy or pension scheme, and if so should you maximise the amounts you and your employer invest?
  5. Investigating the range of tax-efficient investment products on offer, including ISAs, pensions, property, and schemes such as the Venture Capital Trust and the Film Finance Scheme.
  6. Conducting a business healthcheck. Is your business structure tax efficient? What could you do to improve profitability?

We can help you to attain your personal and business goals, by identifying areas where a small change could make a big difference.