Insights

No one likes to be reminded of the need to plan ahead with its specific implications but it’s the key to reducing the impacts of inheritance tax (IHT). The old adage that it’s ‘never too soon but often too late’ comes to mind but with expert advice, planning and guidance you can make sure your assets are protected and the family isn’t left with an excessive inheritance tax bill.

Most shares or options acquired by employees or directors in a company that is, or is connected to, their employer are ‘employment related securities’ (ERS).

The shortlist for the annual Best Practice Awards has been announced today 10 May 2019 by work life balance charity Working Families

Larking Gowen has been named as a finalist in the “Best Flexible Working Initiative” award category of the Working Families’ Best Practice Awards. 

The 2019 winners of the Larking Gowen City of Norwich Half Marathon Business Challenge have been presented with their first place cup on location with the East Anglian Air Ambulance. 

The latest quarterly Insolvency Statistics were released on 30 April 2019. This is the first time that these statistics have been produced separately for Company Insolvencies and Personal Insolvency.

Top 10 things to consider when valuing a business. If you’d like to explore the potential sale of your business, please get in touch.

Welcome to part three of our five part insolvency blog covering the most frequently asked questions around Insolvency and liquidation.

Inheritance tax (IHT) is a tax that will affect many, with potentially devastating consequences. Inheritance tax is frequently talked about and still much misunderstood.

Larking Gowen is proud to support Norwich-based charity, The Benjamin Foundation, with its Flight for Youth campaign. The charity is celebrating 25 years helping young people, in Norfolk and Suffolk, facing homelessness and other challenges.  

The future for UK agriculture has been set out in the Agriculture Bill, which should pass into law later this spring. Michael Gove has referred to it as “The Fourth Agricultural Revolution” and has set out a timescale, at the end of which the UK will be farming without subsidies. 

Lee Green, Director of Insolvency and Recovery, and Bruce Masson, Director in the firm’s long-established Farm and Landed Estates team, are to become partners, with effect from 1 April.

In part 1 of the blog, we examined three ways a solicitors firm can plan to reduce its tax liability. In this blog, and with the tax year end looming, we examine three tax-mitigating opportunities available for individual solicitors.

The Government has passed legislation to extend the non-resident capital gains tax and non-resident corporate tax on gains net to all UK land and property, from 6 April 2019. 

A leading regional accountancy and business advisory firm has been awarded Platinum Partner status by cloud accounting platform Xero.  Larking Gowen, which has offices throughout Norfolk and Suffolk, now has Platinum status for both Xero and QuickBooks, which was awarded last year.

For many solicitors firms, the end of the business year is fast drawing to a close. If results are looking better than previous years, you may be starting to think about the tax implications of a better year. We would urge solicitors firms to make plans now to mitigate these liabilities, and in this blog we discuss three key points that solicitors firms should consider before the year end.

If there are obvious potential buyers for your business for sale then by all means approach them. However, quite understandably, many selling a business are uncomfortable contacting buyers themselves and revealing their intentions to sell their business.

The senior management team of one of the region's largest office supply companies has successfully completed a buyout of the business. Mayday Office Equipment Services, based in Norwich, has been taken over by Operations Director Karen Aldred, Commercial Director Jamie Mulhall and Sales Director Adam Northcut.

Since April 2017, employers with a pay bill of £3 million and over have been required to contribute 0.5% into their apprenticeship levy fund. Two years on, the uptake and spending of these apprenticeship levy funds has been far lower than expected, so much so that the Government is reducing the co-investment cost for small employers.

Larking Gowen has commissioned an adventurous Elmer from artist Jade Dye, for this summer’s Elmer’s Big Parade Suffolk campaign in aid of St Elizabeth Hospice. “My design is inspired by my love of Fantasy art,” explains Jade Dye, who works as a web developer at the University of Suffolk

Charities with total turnover above £200,000 can undertake non-primary purpose trading of income up to £50,000 and benefit from tax exemption (trading towards their primary charitable purpose can be at any level).

In my previous blogs I discussed CEO fraud and vishing as two types of scams which your legal practice could fall into the trap of. In this update I look at a further scheme that legal firms should be aware of.

Charity fundraisers need be aware of two changes to tax relief thresholds that apply from 6 April 2019. Charities often encourage donations by giving a small reward to their donors. Where this is more than token value, this needs to be measured and assessed against value thresholds to make sure that gift aid can still be claimed.

Charity trustees tend to delegate management and the day-to-day running of the charity to its employees and management team. However, ultimately the responsibility lies with trustees, therefore they must make sure that the charity has systems and controls which are designed to mitigate the risk of fraud.

Welcome to part two of our five part insolvency blog covering the most frequently asked questions around insolvency and liquidation.

Indeed, when marketing a business for sale, we will put our name in the NDA rather than our client’s name, and will not reveal the client’s name to the buyer until after the buyer has signed it.

Now tax returns are hopefully out of the way, it’s an ideal opportunity to think about some potential tax saving ideas. 

HMRC are currently investigating 171* professional football players, up 90% from just 90 football players under tax investigation in September 2017, as they look to crack down on the misuse of image rights payments, and increase revenues from the industry. 

Welcome to part one of our five part blog covering the most frequently asked questions around insolvency and liquidation. For further advice about any of the topics covered in our insolvency blogs or regarding a specific scenario, please contact our insolvency & recovery specialists.

Just because they are working for you doesn’t mean they’ve revealed their true financial circumstances. Perhaps they have inherited money, have significant equity in their homes, or have simply saved and invested wisely over the years.

HMRC have increased their investigations into inheritance tax (IHT) as they look to squeeze more from compliance activities in this area. 5,400* families were investigated by HMRC over their inheritance tax returns last year, up 5% from 5,100 in 2016/17.