1. Claim up to £5,000 with the Employment Allowance:
The Employment Allowance reduces employers’ NIC for businesses employing at least two people being paid above the Class 1 NIC Secondary Threshold, if the total employers’ NIC bill did not exceed £100,000 in the previous year. In the Spring Statement, the Chancellor announced an immediate increase in this tax relief from £4,000 to £5,000, taking effect from 6 April 2022. This will benefit around 495,000 businesses by up to £1,000 each in 2022/23 at a cost to the Exchequer of £425 million.
For more information visit https://www.gov.uk/claim-employment-allowance/eligibility
2. Get a discount of up to £5,000 on software, with Help to Grow
As part of the Plan for Jobs, the government have launched ‘Help to Grow: Digital’ that aims to help you choose, buy and adopt digital technologies that will help you grow your business. Eligible businesses can receive a 50% discount on buying new software worth up to £5,000 per SME, alongside free impartial advice and guidance about what digital technology is best suited to boost your business performance.
To be eligible, you must be a UK-based SME, actively trading for at least one year and have a total of between 5 and 249 employees.
The Help to Grow: Management scheme supports senior managers of small and medium sized businesses to boost their business’s performance, resilience, and long-term growth.
The 12-week programme is designed to be taken alongside full-time work through a combination of online sessions and face-to-face learning. The programme is 90% funded by the government so you only pay £750. Delivered in partnership with Small Business Charter, courses are running at leading business schools across the UK.
For more information and to apply, visit Help To Grow on https://helptogrow.campaign.gov.uk/
3. Get up to half off your business rates:
In the Autumn Budget, the government announced several measures to reduce the burden of business rates in England:
- introduce a new temporary business rates relief for eligible retail, hospitality and leisure properties for 2022/23, giving 50% relief up to a £110,000 cap per business
- freeze the business rates multiplier for a second year, from 1 April 2022 to 31 March 2023
- extend transitional relief and supporting small business scheme for 1 year
- from April 2022 there will be no business rates due on a range of green technology, including solar panels and batteries, whilst eligible heat networks will also receive 100% relief.
- The government will reform the system of business rates by increasing the frequency of revaluations from 5 years to 3 years, starting in 2023.
For more information visit https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/business-rates-guidance-202223-retail-hospitality-and-leisure-relief-scheme/202223-retail-hospitality-and-leisure-relief-scheme-local-authority-guidance
https://www.gov.uk/calculate-your-business-rates
https://www.gov.uk/apply-for-business-rate-relief
4. Invest in your business with Super-deduction and Annual Investment Allowance
The March 2021 Budget introduced enhanced capital allowances for companies investing in qualifying new plant and machinery (P&M) from 1 April 2021 until 31 March 2023 as follows:
- a ‘super-deduction’, providing allowances of 130% on new P&M investment that would ordinarily qualify for 18% writing down allowances (WDAs) in the main capital allowance pool;
- a first-year ‘special rate allowance’ of 50% on new P&M investment that would ordinarily qualify for 6% WDAs in the special rate pool (e.g. integral plant in buildings).
A reduced super-deduction rate of between 100% and 130% will apply for accounting periods which straddle 31st March 2023.
For more information visit https://www.gov.uk/guidance/super-deduction
The 100% Annual Investment Allowance (AIA), available to companies and unincorporated businesses, will also be available for qualifying expenditure on P&M up to £1 million until 31 March 2023. The limit will be subject to transitional rules where accounting periods straddle 31 March 2023. The AIA may produce more tax relief for companies than the 50% FYA available for special rate expenditure described above.
As the main corporation tax rate is set to increase from 19% to 25% on 1 April 2023, advancing expenditure to pre 31 March 2023 in order to secure a 100% deduction will result in a smaller amount of tax relief – the tax reduction will come sooner, but it will be given at the lower tax rate of 19%.
For more information visit https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/annual-investment-allowance-extension/annual-investment-allowance-extension
5. Benefit from the cut in Fuel Duty
The government has cut fuel duty on petrol and diesel by 5 pence per litre for 12 months, effective from 23 March 2023. As VAT is charged on top of the duty, this will reduce tax by 6p per litre in total.
6. Flexible Growth Fund (FGF) – (only for Liverpool City Region (LCR) businesses)
The £20m FGF has been designed to incentivise LCR businesses to invest in (primarily) new Capital Expenditure that will help to create new jobs. The funding is available to provide up to 50% of eligible project spend.
- Maximum amount £1m loan value per applicant repayable over maximum 5 years.
- Any size of business is eligible (although large SME are less likely to have access to FGF due to relatively cheap funding available from conventional commercial resources).
- Interest of 2% above Bank of England Base rate from time to time.
- No fees to borrower (e.g. monitoring or arrangement fees).
- Initial capital repayment holiday up to 6 months available if needed.
Applicants must demonstrate Social Value; businesses within the Liverpool City Region Combined Authority’s identified priority sectors are preferred:
- Digital, Createch and AI
- Advanced Manufacturing
- Health and Life Sciences
- Professional and business services
- Low carbon
- Maritime and logistics
- Visitor economy, culture and heritage.
To find out more regarding eligibility please visit: https://growthplatform.org/growing-business/business-growth-package/flexible-growth-fund/ or reach out to us for further details.