Archive for the ‘Personal Finance’ Category
Monday, May 7th, 2012
If you’re freelancing in London as a consultant, IT contractor or simply going self employed and starting your own business as an entrepreneur, there are many reasons why you will need an accountant to take care of your finances.
London remains the UKs largest contractor hub with more contractors and contractor vacancies than any other city with positions across IT and Telecoms, Hospitality and Tourism and Retail. However Finance and Banking is probably one of the largest, with many of the leading UK, European and US banks having large offices in the City.
So in the rush for competitive contracts, most people will be more concerned about where the work is coming from, how much they will charge their clients and how to manage their cash flow, than the fact that they need a good accountant to not only help manage their books, but also to make them even more money from their earnings.
But do I really need an accountant?
Most people who are self employed as contractors or have formed a small limited company will greatly benefit from London contractor accountants. A good accountant in London will be experienced in managing the books of self employed people while enabling you to take advantage of all the little loop holes from claiming expenses to paying yourself in dividends.
So what’s so special about a contractor accountant in London?
Location is one thing. After all, being able to meet your accountant face to face to go over the books is an opportunity that very few small businesses or individuals can otherwise afford due to travel and distance.
Similarly, a London based accountant will be savvy in all the ways of the city. So they will also be able to help you claim back additional costs commonly incurred from working in the city, such as tube travel, parking, business lunches and business calls as well as stationary and other essential expenses which help you to keep up appearances in this fast moving and highly competitive world.
However, you must keep records of any expenses. You’ll need these records to make sure that your forms P11D, P9D and P11D(b) are accurate at the end of the tax year, and to ensure that you and any employees pay the correct amount of tax and National Insurance contributions.
But these are just a few of the expenses that can be claimed. And if you are a contractor working inside IR35, you can also claim expenses, although these tend to be fewer.
Considering how much a good contractor accountant could save you in expenses, they would cover their own costs and still net you a sizeable profit. They can also provide invaluable insights and advice which well aid your business in the long run as well. So it’s definitely a worthwhile investment
Tags: Accountants, Business Lunches, Cash Flow, Contractor Accountant, Dividends, Earnings, Entrepreneur, Freelancing, Hospitality, Hub, Investments, Limited Company, London Location, Loop Holes, Rush, Small Businesses, Starting Your Own Business, Travel Parking, Tube Travel, Uks, Vacancies
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Thursday, April 19th, 2012
Pension drawdown lets people to get a lump sum, allowed from tax, from their private pension endowment. Together with this endowment, you could take out as much as 25% tax-free from your annuity fund devoid of any disadvantage. Nevertheless, note that you cannot do preparation for a pension drawdown over one time, so it’s implausibly significant for you to make things right at very first time.
You have to arrange an appointment with a registered negotiator; they could fix all of your choices connected to your revenue from annuity, and clarify the information obviously. They could also assist you create the right choice in addition to help to discover a proper and safe retirement choice. Furthermore, they could assist you to discover the accurate supplier and bring you all over to a state where you could take the accurate quantity out. Positively they don’t need you to discuss the accurate quantity and sustain extra assessments.
Mediators are not connected to some bank or annuity earner, which means that they could meet some of the best agreements accessible in the whole market. Several mediators will provide a free assembly with a cultured monetary advisor who will evaluate your savings and validate that you acquire the correct pension drawdown proposal. They could also assist to do an arrangement with no additional responsibilities in addition to offer a complete clarification of how pension drawdown does its job.
Pension drawdown could provide you money for a timely retirement, reserves that you could use to capitalize in any scheme hereafter, a reserve of fast, tax-free revenue, and correct to make use of money. If you follow to the overall standards, then a pension drawdown could be an outstanding method for you to acquire access to capitals. Pension drawdown, moreover, assists you grow a plan for withdrawal for the reason that you know how much funds you got.
They’re as well a countless way to place more cash in your account for unanticipated expenditures. However, they could be difficult; a lot of people will attempt to discover specialists to counsel them prior to them to carry out determining on which choice they have to select if they have to do integrity to their monetary necessities.
Tags: Accurate Supplier, Annuity Fund, Annuity Information, Appointment, Capitals, Choices, Clarification, Drawdown Pension, Endowment, Free Assembly, Ins And Outs, Lump Sum, Mediators, Money, Negotiator, Pension, Pension Drawdown, Private Pension, Proposal, Retirement Choice, Right Choice
Posted in Banking Finance, Insurance, Personal Finance, Personal Investment | No Comments »
Thursday, April 5th, 2012
Prior to investigating on what a debt management method can prepare for you as an individual or as commerce, it will be better to choose its possibility. It is a delusion amongst a lot of people that debt management strategies can just be used for removing the current embankment of debts. Nonetheless, debt management strategies have a prolonged opportunity. As the name proposes, debt management strategies might be used with benefit to accomplish the debts to a specific level. It should be recognized that an appropriate organization of debts turns debt consolidation and other procedures engaged to fight the threat of debts surplus. A lot of people recurrence the adage continually. It will be by means of debt management strategies that one can truly progress the conducts in one’s life and industries.
On the other hand, the part played by debt management strategies in working together with the debts already sustained might not be reduced. A lot of people be indebted their financial existence to the debt consolidation loans that assisted them counter insolvency and other debt connected difficulties.
As the defensive part of the debt management strategy is more extensively used, we will initially deliberate the several strategies to cope with debts that a person or business has already experienced.
The most conservative technique of dealing with debts is debt alliance credits. Debt consolidation loan is fundamentally destined to assemble easy finance for defrayal the knoll of debts. A particular loan is strained after combining the several debts. One feature that differentiates debt consolidation loan from other loans is that the debtor gets assistance and help from the debt alliance loan source in the payment of debts. Professional cooperation skills and a expertise in debt settlement endorse the facilities of the debt alliance loan earner by the way.
The debt payment company assumes to pay the debts while the borrower reimburses the amount by means of small regular payments to the debt payment company. As deliberated above, the defensive approaches are similarly significant strategies employed to prevent the incidence of debts. Debt therapy purposes to inform debt management exercise to people as well as businesses. People are trained the way wherein to achieve their profits. A lot of the instructions given as a portion of the debt counseling methods are time worn. The goal of debt advising is not to evoke these methods, but to assist people by means of ground-breaking ways and means to work these methods in their life.
The self-justifying debt management tactics having reimbursed the debts do not give enough assurance of the threat of debts not rising its head again. There is a requirement to stop the cycle of the debts, and the precautionary part of debt management strategies will be particularly useful on this count.
Tags: Adage, Cooperation Skills, Debt Consolidation Loan, Debt Consolidation Loans, Debt Management, Debt Management IVA, Debt Management Strategies, Debt Management Strategy, Debt Payment, Debt Settlement, Debtor, Debts, Delusion, Easy Finance, Embankment, Insolvency, IVA Debt Management, Knoll, Loan Source, Management Method, Professional Cooperation, Quagmire, Recurrence
Posted in Credit Finance, Personal Finance | No Comments »
Monday, March 26th, 2012
Is there anything SIPP Pension investors need to know? What is SIPP and what does it stand for? To begin with SIPP is Self-Invested Personal Pension plans known popularly as SIPP pension whereby an individual can invest all his pension amounts for his own benefit. To enter into any kind of such plans you must first of all seek the advice of an approved service provider. Generally insurance companies or may be fund managers can help you out. When you seek the help of service providers you will be able to take full advantage of tax benefits.
Even though SIPPs have been about ever since 1990, in current years they have turned out to be far more accepted as investors intend to attain the most excellent level of pension income achievable. At the moment, an approximate 70,000 SIPP plans can be found in the UK with assets beyond £14bn. The major attraction of SIPPs is that they are able to provide you far better option and additional control over your investments in pension funds than conventional pension plans.
The most important advantage of SIPP Pension is that of tax benefits. Similar to all normal personal pension plans the investors of SIPP also can benefit from tax. These investments are involuntarily free from fundamental tax rates. In case you pay a very high rate of tax then you can additionally claim relief in your returns. In the same way if you have invested your SIPP in real estate, then income from such investments will not be subjected to tax on capital gains.
Key points for anything SIPP investors’ tax benefits:
- Government involuntarily appends fundamental tax respite rate of 20%.
- High rate of tax payers is now eligible to claim back an additional 20% or may be even 30% tax respite depending on the tax rate that you pay. It means that whether you are paying a 40% or 50% tax then you can claim additional tax relief.
- When you invest your pension money in a SIPP it can develop free of any Income tax in addition to UK Capital gains tax.
- The moment you become 55 years of age, you are entitled to obtain a 25% amount entirely tax free.
Tags: Assets, Capital Gain, Capital Gains, Fund Managers, Income Tax, Insurance Companies, Invest Money, Investments, Pension Funds, Pension Income, Pension Money, Personal Pension, Respite, Service Provider, Service Providers, Sipps, Tax Payers, Tax Rate, Tax Rates, Tax Relief
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Monday, March 19th, 2012
This post was written by Graeme Joseph, who is a freelance writer, specialising in the subjects of personal finance, payday lenders, and moneysaving tips.
Exchange rates explained
A couple of weeks ago I went on holiday to another country for the first time and, as I’d never had to think about it before, I was completely clueless as to how the exchange rate system worked. I left it up to my friends to visit the bureau de change and get the currency we needed, but then I started to wonder just how it actually worked. Well, if you’ve found yourself in a similar situation as of late or you’re just interested in learning all about exchange rates, here’s my idiot’s guide to them.
To begin with you need to understand why different countries have different currencies, as without this there’d be no need to explain exchange rates! Basically, as countries evolved as singular nations without influence each developed its own monetary system – Japan has the yen, the USA’s got the dollar, the UK has the pound and so on and so forth.
In the past the exchange rate system followed the gold standard – this was a way of showing how much a currency was worth in real gold sat in bank vaults. This was set by the USA, which decided how much an ounce of gold was worth in dollars. This led many other countries to base their exchange rate system on this standard. This was an easy way of figuring out how much a currency was worth when set against the dollar but, after issues such as inflation, the Wall Street Crash, the First and Second World Wars and many other worldwide problems, the gold standard collapsed.
There are now two major systems for determining a currency’s exchange rate – the floating exchange rate system and the fixed exchange rate system.
The floating system is determined by a number of economic factors for each country, so its exchange rate can fluctuate depending on how strong its economy is, as well as many other factors. Most countries prefer to use the floating system as fluctuations in its exchange rate are determined by the foreign exchange market, which deals in international trade for the entire world and therefore gives a truer picture of a country’s exchange rate.
An example of a fixed exchange rate would be the Euro. In this system countries fix their currencies against another country’s currency, with the central bank (which is the European Central Bank in the case of the Eurozone) being the entity that keeps the exchange rate close to the selected target. Twelve countries use the Euro and so it is now the second most important currency in the world, behind the US dollar.
Currencies and exchange rates are vital as they help to determine a country’s economy so, the next time you visit the bureau de change, pay some attention to the exchange rates!
Tags: Bank Vaults, Currencies, Currency Exchange, Currency Rate, Economic Factors, Economy, Exchange Rate System, Exchange Rates, financial, Freelance Writer Specialising, Gold Standard, Inflation, lending, Loan Rates, Monetary System, Money Saving, Moneysaving Tips, Ounce Of Gold, Payday Lenders, Personal Finance, Wall Street, Wall Street Crash, Worldwide Problems, Yen
Posted in Personal Finance, Personal Investment | No Comments »
Monday, March 5th, 2012
Looking for information about contractor tax? Then follow this simple guide to paying tax as your own limited company.
Everyone knows that the most tax efficient way of contracting or freelancing is through a limited company. By registering your own limited company the only contractor tax you will pay are Limited Company Taxes and Personal Taxes.
If functioning through a limited company correctly, you will be saving a lot of money even when paying these taxes while being eligible to claim back a wide range of expenses outside of IR35.
Corporation Tax
Within a limited company, the contractor tax comes in form of a 20% corporation tax which applies to limited companies earning under £300,000 in overall profits. However, your expenses come out of your overall profit and are not taxed, which is why claiming expenses is such an important part of being a contractor.
NI Contributions
As part of contractor tax, your limited company is required to pay 13.8% on any salary paid to an employee over the amount of a hundred and thirty pounds a week. And that includes paying your own salary from the limited company which you are the owner of.
VAT
Fortunately, contractors are registered upon Value Added Tax (VAT) on a Flat Rate Scheme. This type of contractor tax scheme was bought in to simplify VAT for smaller companies and businesses, charging 20% on all invoices and then paying the HMRC back at a lesser rate.
PAYE and Income Tax
When contracting, income tax is directly deducted from your earnings as though you were employed by another company. However, there are different thresholds for income tax, so be sure to check up on the amount that you should be paying.
Employee’s NI Contribution
And finally, if you receive payment and benefits from your own limited company, you will also be required to pay Employee’s NI Contribution. So you get taxed for as an employer paying yourself from your own limited company and then you pay tax for receiving a salary as an employee of your own limited company.
As always, seek the advice of an accountant to help you with crucial dates of payment and to ensure that this does not place you inside IR35.
Tags: Contractor Form, Contractor Insurance, Earnings, Freelancing, Hmrc, Income Tax, Insurance, Invoices, Limited Companies, Limited Company, Money, National Insurance Contribution, National Insurance Contributions, Profits, Rate Scheme, Salary, Smaller Companies, Tax Form, Tax Information, Tax Rate, Tax Scheme, Thresholds, Value Added Tax, Vat
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Tuesday, February 21st, 2012
There comes a point in most people’s lives when they consider that it is time to go out and see a bit of the world. This often comes when the person reaches retirement age but it could also be when their children grow up or when they simply realise that the time has to come to get a break from the routine.
Of course, the big problem is usually how to find the money to do this. After all, seeing the world isn’t a particularly cheap business, even your average family holiday isn’t cheap is it? Even if you decide to pass on the expensive cruises from Southampton and 5 star hotels and go for a low cost, independent trip you can still expect it to cost a good deal more than what most of us having sitting around in our bank accounts.
So do we just give up on the dream of travelling the world and settle for living the same sort of life which we are now starting to feel unsatisfied with? Thankfully there are some options open to you which could make your dreams of seeing far flung places come true.
Borrow the Money
If you don’t have the money to fulfil dream which drives you on then the most likely thing for you to do is borrow the cash. This is easier said than done though, isn’t it? If you plan to take a long trip abroad then this is going to cost you quite a lot of money, and borrowing enough money to make it a comfortable and enjoyable journey could be hard work.
This is where looking at the equity in your property could really help you out. If you have been working and paying off your mortgage year after year then there is a very good chance that the place is now worth a lot more than you owe on it. This difference is the equity, and by borrowing against that you could make sure of an unforgettable trip which lets you live out your dreams.
Plan the Journey
Even when you have a decent sum of money to play with it is important to take care over your arrangements. When you spend every night in a hotel and eat out every day a fairly big budget is needed. There is now a lot of information available online and getting hold of the facts and figures you need shouldn’t be too difficult.
Even if you like the idea of jetting off and making up the details as you go along it is still a wise idea to do a little bit of investigation in advance. You can relax more and enjoy more of a stress free time of it by finding out some of the basic costs and essential details first.
Tags: Bank Accounts, Budget, Cheap Business, Cruise Ships, Cruises, Dreams, Enjoyable Journey, Enough Money, Family Holiday, Good Chance, Hotels, Loans, Long Trip, Retirement Age, Sort Of Life, Southampton, Sum Of Money, Travel
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Tuesday, February 21st, 2012
Getting hold of a laptop or television on a pay monthly deal is a fantastic way of getting what you want quickly and without a lot of upfront expense. As with any other important purchase there are some things to take into account, and here are the main ones.
Explore the Deals
You might think that the only way of getting your hands on a laptop without shelling out a big lump sum is by getting a loan from your bank or whipping out the dreaded credit card. This is no longer the case, and by getting a computer on a pay monthly finance deal you can avoid huge interest rates and seemingly never ending repayment terms. It certainly makes more sense to do it with a specialist payment plan then by using a conventional loan for this purpose.
Go Online
The easiest way to shop for most things these days is on the internet, and this is especially true with computers, laptops and televisions. As there are a lot of facts and figures to be investigated you will want to make sure that you have access to all of the information. Unless you fancy going from one High Street shop to another with a piece of paper with scribbled details on it (yes, we have all done it) then the internet is the best place to find all of the details you need.
Get the Right Model
Just because you aren’t paying upfront for the machine doesn’t mean that you need to compromise on the model you are after. Whether you want a really fast processor, a lightweight model or some other feature, you will find plenty of different types of laptop on offer using this sort of payment plan. You don’t need to jump in and take the first one you see, as there is a good selection to pick from. This might take you a little bit of time but it is certainly better than finding out later on that the model you choose doesn’t have the memory or processing capacity that you need. By making the right decision at the very start you can be safe in the knowledge that you are going to get a lot of enjoyment and use out of your laptop for a long time.
Plan Ahead
One of the great things about getting a new laptop this way is that you can get the deal with best suits you. This might mean simply paying for the laptop until you own it and then keep it. However, there are people who prefer to change their machines every year or so, so maybe you will want a shorter term deal with the idea of upgrading again in the near future.
Tags: Computer Finance, Conventional Loan, Credit Card, Finance Deal, Getting A Loan, Getting Your Hands, Interest Rates, Laptop, Laptops, Lightweight Model, Little Bit, Lump Sum, Memory, Piece Of Paper, Processing Capacity, Repayment Terms, Right Decision, Television, Televisions, Whipping
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Friday, February 17th, 2012
A recent study shows that IT specialists are trying to find long-term contracts, even though they pay less than less secure freelance work. Umbrella company Giant have undertaken analysis that demonstrates temporary workers in the IT industry much prefer the security of longer contracts despite the fact that a more casual set up might pay more in the short term.
Based on the study, two-thirds of IT contractors would take on a much less profitable task even if confronted with the chance to take a higher paid short-term role. This suggests that job stability is one of the most valued elements of a position, especially in the present economic climate that could be referred to as ‘uncertain’ at best. Approximately one third of people questioned revealed that they might plump for the higher-paid deal, with the overwhelming majority indicating that long-term stability is preferable to salary.
Anyone who has taken a position with a lower wage can at least figure out what they will end up with following tax along with other deductions using a take-home pay calculator. Furthermore, any assistance you may need regarding IR35 law and regulations is available from your accountancy firm, that happen to be well-versed in all aspects of the law in terms of these problems.
The market research also showed that IT contractors are encountering fewer and shorter intervals unemployed, with 80% of those questioned confirming spending 31 days or less without employment. The year before the same study confirmed this figure at 78% – while at the same time the retail industry spent more greatly in IT as modern innovations guide their thoughts toward mobile commerce. 17% of IT contractors surveyed claimed work from the telecoms industry – a rise of 43% compared with 2011.
A word of caution for IT contractors, nevertheless – the steadiness of long-term contracts is great, but take care not to place all your eggs in one basket. This perspective originates from the experience of those that have observed themselves growing to be too associated with one firm in particular, leaving themselves open to recent changes in IR35 regulations. Standing on your own as a service provider as opposed to an employee provides much greater freedom.
If you’d like to talk to someone concerning the benefits and drawbacks of dealing with long-term contracts with similar company, contact Nixon Williams today and see what effect this might have on your taxes.
Tags: Accountancy Firm, Caution, Economic Climate, Eggs In One Basket, Expe, Freelance Work, Innovations, Intervals, Market Research, Mobile Commerce, Overwhelming Majority, Retail Industry, Salary, Steadiness, Take Home Pay Calculator, Telecoms Industry, Term Contracts, Term Stability, Two Thirds, Umbrella Company
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