By Alan Woods FCCA, Woods Squared
This year, we’ve asked some of our members to share with us their thoughts on the budget: how it affects them and how it affects the businesses with which they work. Their views are their own. Today’s first post comes from Alan Woods of Woods Squared, a Wirral-based, award-winning accounting firm that offers a range of business growth accountancy services to SMEs in all sectors across Merseyside and Cheshire.
Is it just me or was there very little in the budget for small businesses to get excited about? There was a great headline about the reduction in the main Corporation Tax Rate but no changes at all for small businesses with profits of less than £300,000.
Also, I wait to see the actual benefit of the simplified approach suggested for businesses with turnover less than £77,000. The idea of allowing smaller businesses to calculate their tax liabilities based on cash movement rather than on profit seems a good one but in our experience for many smaller businesses these are actually one and the same anyway – the devil will be in the detail as always and I wait to see the actual benefit this proposed simplification will bring.
Finally the National Loan Guarantee Scheme launched yesterday will be a benefit but it is disappointing that not all banks are involved with HSBC in particular not wanting to take part. It’s also disappointing that the criteria of who will be eligible has not been amended as it looks like it will be the same businesses that are already able to obtain credit that would be the ones that will benefit from this scheme – great for them and any business that can reduce their costs by 1%, but it would have been great to see some funds being made available to more businesses.
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