A further package of support for the businesses and workers affected by Carillion’s liquidation was announced Saturday 3 February, by Business Secretary Greg Clark.

Through delivery partners that include all the major high street lenders, the British Business Bank will provide support to make available up to £100 million of lending to small businesses who may not have the security otherwise needed for conventional bank lending using its Enterprise Finance Guarantee programme.

This will be of benefit to small businesses, including the chain of subcontractors to Carillion, who may not have sufficient assets as security to access conventional loans. These guarantees can be used to support overdraft borrowing and refinancing of existing debt.

The UK’s leading banks have also furthered their commitment to provide support to those affected with UK Finance confirming additional support for personal banking customers concerned about overdraft, mortgage or credit card repayments, as well as further financial support for small businesses to provide short-term relief to help keep them afloat.

Business Secretary Greg Clark said:

We want to signal very clearly to small and medium sized businesses who were owed money by Carillion that they will be supported to continue trading.

The banks have responded to my request by agreeing to support businesses and individuals affected. This further guarantee will help those businesses who may not be able to provide the usual security for a loan.

I will continue to work closely with business organisations, trade unions and banks to actively support those affected by Carillion’s insolvency.

This package is in addition to the more than £200 million already announced by Lloyds Banking Group, HSBC and RBS.

HMRC has stopped thousands of taxpayers from receiving scam text messages, with 90 percent of the most convincing texts now halted before they reach their phones.

The milestone comes during Take Five To Stop Fraud Week, with the tax authority working to raise awareness of the tell-tale signs of fraud ahead of the Self-Assessment deadline.

Fraudsters alleging to be from HMRC send text messages to unsuspecting members of the public. In these messages they will make false claims, such as suggesting they are due a tax rebate. Messages will usually include links to websites that harvest personal information or spread malware. This can in turn lead to identity fraud and the theft of people’s personal savings.

HMRC will never contact customers who are due a tax refund by text message or by email.

Reports of this type of fraud have quickly increased in volume over the last few years. People are 9 times more likely to fall for text message scams than other forms like email because they can appear more legitimate, with many texts displaying ‘HMRC’ as the sender, rather than a phone number.

HMRC, working with public and private partners, began a pilot in April 2017 to combat these messages. The new technology identifies fraud texts with ‘tags’ that suggest they are from HMRC and stops them from being delivered.

Since the pilot began, there has been a 90% reduction in customer reports around the spoofing of these specific HMRC-related tags on SMS and a five-fold reduction in malicious SMS reports. The initiative has helped reduce reports of these scams from over 5,000 in March 2017, before the new programme was introduced, to fewer than 1,000 in December 2017. This progress comes after similar successes in tackling fraudulent emails and websites.

In the last 12 months, HMRC has initiated the removal of 16,000 malicious websites, meaning even if the texts are delivered, the associated phishing website is likely to have been removed.

By introducing technical controls, HMRC has also stopped customers receiving over 300 million emails purporting to come from the tax authority.

HMRC is working with the National Cyber Security Centre to further this work and extend the benefits beyond HMRC customers.

1 February 2018 – Due date for corporation tax payable for the year ended 30 April 2017.

19 February 2018 – PAYE and NIC deductions due for month ended 5 February 2018. (If you pay your tax electronically the due date is 22 February 2018)

19 February 2018 – Filing deadline for the CIS300 monthly return for the month ended 5 February 2018.

19 February 2018 – CIS tax deducted for the month ended 5 February 2018 is payable by today.

1 March 2018 – Due date for corporation tax due for the year ended 31 May 2017.

2 March 2018 – Self assessment tax for 2016/17 paid after this date will incur a 5% surcharge.

19 March 2018 – PAYE and NIC deductions due for month ended 5 March 2018. (If you pay your tax electronically the due date is 22 March 2018)

19 March 2018 – Filing deadline for the CIS300 monthly return for the month ended 5 March 2018.

19 March 2018 – CIS tax deducted for the month ended 5 March 2018 is payable by today.

A company, Casio Services Ltd (CSL), had been registered with Companies House since June 2016, and after that confirmation by Companies House the directors would no doubt have felt that they could trade with the registered name with no restriction.

Unfortunately, Casio Electronics Co Limited (CECL), a previously registered business disagreed.

CECL were not happy with CSL’s use of the Casio name and applied to the courts to request CSL to change its name. CSL did not contest the application and have been required to do just that, change their company name.

This case is a salutary reminder that registration of a company name at Companies House does not give you exclusive rights to ongoing use of that name if a company previously registered feels that your name is like its own and would allow you to pass off your businesses as associated with it in some way.

With no agreement on tariffs, the UK will be treated as any other non-EU trading nation post Brexit. Consequently, UK importers would be required to make an up-front VAT payment in addition to any customs duties. This VAT payment will rank as input VAT that can be reclaimed from HMRC.

However, a problem will arise if an importer submits VAT returns quarterly. Any VAT paid to HMRC when they import goods will be authenticated by the issue of HMRC’s form C79 (this form is issued monthly). Once issued this can be treated like a VAT invoice and included on the next VAT return.

Accordingly, the importer will not be able to reclaim VAT until this form is received.

Affected businesses therefore need to add the VAT costs each quarter to their cash flow as it could be up to four months until a refund of import VAT paid can be recouped.

It is to be hoped that our government will respond to lobbying on this issue. Perhaps they will allow some form of deferment of the VAT payable or speed up the reclaim process.