Looking for childcare for the February half-term? Don’t forget you can save up to £2,000 a year with Government support.

Families are being reminded that opening a Tax-Free Childcare account can help their bank balance if they have children aged 11 or under – or 16 if their child has a disability – if they go to nursery, a childminder, attends breakfast or after school club, has holiday care or go to an out of school activity.

Victoria Atkins, Financial Secretary to the Treasury, said: “Tax-Free Childcare can make a big difference to household budgets and I urge families to make sure they are getting the help they are entitled to.”

For every £8 paid into an online account, families automatically receive an additional £2 from the Government. Parents can receive up to £500 every three months (£2,000 a year), or £1,000 (£4,000 a year) if their child is disabled.

How to get you money

Opening a Tax-Free Childcare account is simple and takes around 20 minutes. Money can be deposited at any time and can be used straight away, or whenever it is needed. Unused money in the account can be withdrawn at any time.

Victoria said: “It is a simple process – go online today, set up an account and start making real savings on your childcare costs.”

Families could be eligible for Tax-Free Childcare if they:

• have a child or children aged 11 or under. They stop being eligible on 1 September after their 11th birthday. If their child has a disability, they may get up to £4,000 a year until 1 September after their 16th birthday
• earn, or expect to earn, at least the National Minimum Wage or Living Wage for 16 hours a week, on average
• each earn no more than £100,000 per annum
• do not receive tax credits, Universal Credit or childcare vouchers

Myrtle Lloyd, HMRC’s Director General for Customer Services, said: “We want to help working families and by using Tax-Free Childcare, they can use the Government top-up to make their money go further. Search ‘Tax-Free Childcare’ on GOV.UK to find out how it could help you.”

A noodle shop in Hertfordshire is the 100,000th recipient of support from the Government’s Start Up Loans programme.

More than £940m has been handed out to small businesses since the programme was launched in 2012.

Business Minister Kevin Hollinrake said: “We know how important small businesses are to our communities, creating jobs, growth and opportunities, and that is why we are backing them all the way to not only start up, but to scale up.

“As a former business owner, I know how difficult it can be to get your business off the ground, which is why I’m incredibly proud that Government-backed Start Up Loans have helped 100,000 aspiring entrepreneurs, from Shetland to Shoreditch, to make their dreams a reality.”

UK-wide support

The scheme, administered by the British Business Bank, offers financial support, guidance and advice to entrepreneurs looking to start their own business.

From the 100,000 loans, 40 per cent have gone to women and one-in-five to people from Black, Asian and other ethnic minority backgrounds.

Meanwhile, young people (aged between 18 and 24 years old) have received 14 per cent of loans.

The success of the Start Up Loans scheme has been felt nationwide, with new and exciting businesses across the country using them to establish and grow.

The top five local authorities by loan volume and value are Birmingham, Leeds, Cornwall, Hackney in East London and Manchester.

With 12,382 loans in the North-West, 7,117 in the East of England, 5,616 in the East Midlands and 1,539 in Northern Ireland, as well as many more across all parts of the United Kingdom, the Start Up Loans scheme has seen the entire UK benefit, with total economic activity estimated to be around £5.3 billion.

Start up, scale up

Richard Bearman, Managing Director, Start Up Loans said: “Start Up Loans supports people across the UK who are looking to start their own businesses and passing our 100,000 loan milestone is an amazing achievement that has been ten years in the making.

“We could not have achieved this without the dedicated support of our network of UK delivery partners and in-house team, and I’d like to take this chance to thank them for everything they do to make our work possible.”

The Government is not only supporting businesses to start up, but to scale up too. The Start Up Loans scheme was recently expanded to provide finance to eligible businesses operating for up to five years to support their expansion. The Business Secretary Grant Shapps also recently announced a ‘Scale-up Summit’ to bring together key technology, development and finance figures who have accelerated businesses from start-ups to scale-ups.

Thinking about starting a business? Get in touch to see how we can help.

Have you checked the details held on your property ahead of a UK-wide re-evaluation of non-domestic rates in just two months?

If the answer is ‘no’, we would strongly advise that you put it on your to-do list.

A new non-domestic rating list comes into effect on 1 April after the 2017 list closes. If the information held by the Valuation Office Agency (VOA) isn’t correct, it could affect your future business rates.

The rating list sets out all rateable values for non-domestic properties in England and Wales. It is used by local authorities to help determine business rates. But your rateable value isn’t the same as your business rates bill.

The closure of the 2017 list means that there are only limited circumstances in which further amendments may be made to it. These are when:

• changes need to be made to the list following Checks submitted before 1 April 2023 (and any subsequent challenges and appeals).
• the VOA is correcting inaccuracies on the list (this can be done up to 31 March 2024). If the list is changed then customers for those properties have the right to make a Check within six months of the change.
• a customer wants to challenge the 2017 list on the grounds of a tribunal or court decision. They can do this so long as a Check has been made by 30 September 2023.

This means that you have up until 31 March to check that the factual information held about your property on the 2017 list is correct, and to inform the VOA if it isn’t (this is known as making a Check case).

You will be able to challenge the 2017 assessment if you are not happy with the outcome.

If information needs updating, you will need to have an account set up on the Government Gateway and claim your property before you can make a Check case.

It can take some time to claim a property. It is recommended that you do this as soon as possible if you want to make a Check case on the information held about your property on the 2017 list.

When reviewing the information already held, you will need to consider if the below have been correctly reported:

• accommodation or floor area
• heating and air conditioning
• width if it is a shop
• car parking
• floor levels
• mezzanines
• temporary structures
• storage land
• security cameras

The VOA regularly looks at property information selected at random and will carry out inspections if it is believed the details are incorrect.