If your competitor is a company, there is quite a lot of information you can obtain free of charge. For example, from the Gov.uk website you can obtain the following details:

• company information, for example registered address and date of incorporation
• current and resigned officers
• document images
• mortgage charge data
• previous company names
• insolvency information

You can also set up free email alerts to tell you when a company updates its details (for example, a change of director or address).

You should also make a point of reviewing your competitors’ websites on a periodic basis as this will keep you up-to-date with changes to their service or products including pricing and innovative ideas that might influence your product development planning.

Create a list of sites and factor in your observations into your planning meetings.

When did you last survey your existing customers?

It makes sense to survey your customers from time to time to get objective feedback on your current service levels. This can be invaluable data to factor into your systems development.

In particular, you should tease out the details of any factors that are likely to affect their future buying decisions:

• economic concerns,
• price sensitivity,
• redundancy, are your products keeping pace with those offered by competitors,
• discounts,
• buying experience,
• after sales service,
• loyalty bonuses and so on.

Offer a gift or other inducement to participate in the survey and act on the results.

Our competitors can be a rich source of ideas for our own business development as well as the strategies innovated from within our organisations. Keeping an eye on the competition should be part of your planning options. Ignore them at your peril.

Prior to April 2016, men born before 6 April 1951 and women born before 6 April 1953, qualified for a basic State Pension and an Additional State Pension.

If you were born after these dates you will qualify for the New State Pension and will no longer be eligible for the Additional State Pension (unless you inherit the Additional State Pension of your partner).

The remainder of this post set out details of the New State Pension (NSP). The basics:

• The earliest you can claim the NSP is when you reach the relevant State Pension Age.
• You will need to have paid at least 10 years National Insurance Contributions (NICs) to be eligible for any NSP payment.
• You will need 35 years of NICs to qualify for the full NSP.
• The NSP is currently £168.40 per week.

Check your pension record

You can apply online for a Pensions Statement that sets out the number of years contributions you have already made.

Claiming your pension

You have to claim your NSP, there is no automatic entitlement. You can claim online, by phone, by downloading a pension claim form or following a separate claims procedure if you live abroad.

Pension planning

Clearly, if a State Pension is your only income after you reach the State Retirement Age, this will be unlikely to cover the basics and you will need additional income or savings to make up the difference.

And the earlier you start this planning process, the more chance you have of achieving a reasonable income after retirement.

Action plan

We recommend that all readers consider the following action plan:

1. Apply for a State Pension Statement that clearly sets out the number of years NIC contributions you have made and those you still need to make to qualify for the NSP.
2. Organise a formal planning meeting with your pension’s advisor to ensure that you are keeping pace with your need to supplement the NSP with a private pension after retirement.

Time flies. Don’t leave this important aspect of your personal financial wellbeing until it is too late to create a reasonable pension fund, from State or private sources.

There are still a number of sales (disposals) that a UK taxpayer can make that will not incur a charge to the UK’s Capital Gains Tax. For most of us they are limited in extent, after all legislators have had plenty of time to close any favourable loop-holes.

For most of us, the major tax-free gain remains the sale of our home, but even this generous relief can be compromised. For example, readers who have let their home for a period should take professional advice to see if this will trigger a CGT liability when they sell.

Also, for the tax year 2019-20, individuals are entitled to make chargeable gains of up to £12,000 and pay no CGT.

If you jointly own a chargeable item, you would both be entitled to this £12,000 exemption and the £6,000 personal possession relief highlighted below.

Other tax-free gains include:

• personal possessions as long as the proceeds do not exceed £6,000
• your car, unless used in a business
• anything with a limited lifespan, unless used in your business
• ISA’s

Additionally, any gift to your spouse or civil partner, that would usually be subject to a CGT charge, is free of any CGT liability.

Even if none of the above exemptions apply in your circumstances there are a considerable number of additional reliefs you may be able to claim to reduce the impact of any CGT payable. If you are likely to be making disposals it is well worth the investment to see how you can quite legally reduce any impact of CGT.

A final note: take professional advice BEFORE you make the disposal. Seeking advice after disposal is rather like waiting for a bus after the last service has departed.

Readers are reminded that from 1 April 2019, the National Living Wage (NLW) and National Minimum Wage (NMW) hourly rates increased to:

• 25 and over – £8.21
• 21 to 24 – £7.70
• 18-20 – £6.15
• Under 18 £4.35
• Apprentices £3.90

Workers who are entitled to receive these rates as a minimum include:

• part-time
• casual labourers, for example someone hired for one day
• agency workers
• workers and homeworkers paid by the number of items they make
• apprentices
• trainees, workers on probation
• disabled workers
• agricultural workers
• foreign workers
• seafarers
• offshore workers

Workers who are not necessarily, entitled to the NLW ort NMW include:

• self-employed people running their own business
• company directors
• volunteers or voluntary workers
• workers on a government employment programme, such as the Work Programme
• members of the armed forces
• family members of the employer living in the employer’s home
• non-family members living in the employer’s home who share in the work and leisure activities, are treated as one of the family and are not charged for meals or accommodation, for example au pairs
• workers younger than school leaving age (usually 16)
• higher and further education students on a work placement up to 1 year
• workers on government pre-apprenticeships schemes
• people on the following European Union (EU) programmes: Leonardo da Vinci, Erasmus , Comenius
• people working on a Jobcentre Plus Work trial for 6 weeks
• share fishermen
• prisoners
• people living and working in a religious community

These rates are not advisory, where they apply, they are compulsory

Responsibility for monitoring that employers “obey” the NLW and NMW regulations falls on HMRC, and they have specific powers to enforce and punish business owners that fail to pay their staff the statutory rates set out above.

On their website, HMRC say:

It’s a criminal offence for employers to not pay someone the National Minimum Wage or National Living Wage, or to fake payment records.

Employers who discover they’ve paid a worker below the correct minimum wage must pay any arrears immediately.

HMRC officers have the right to carry out checks at any time and ask to see payment records. They can also investigate employers if a worker complains to them.

If HMRC finds that an employer has not been paying the correct rates, any arrears have to be paid back immediately. There will also be a fine and offenders might be named by the government.

It’s the employer’s responsibility to keep records proving that they are paying the minimum wage – most employers use their payroll records as proof. All records have to be kept for 3 years.

As these rates change annually, it is imperative that employers affected by these regulations review their payroll systems to ensure they are paying the correct amounts and keeping records in the correct format.

From April 2020, HMRC are changing two important tax concessions that apply to landlords letting property that they as owners have previously occupied at some point as their home (Principal Private Residence (PPR)).

The first is the reduction of the present rule that exempts the final 18 months of ownership from any Capital Gains Tax (CGT) charge. From April 2020 it is proposed that this will be reduced to 9 months.

The second change is to letting relief. Presently, if a landlord has previously occupied a rental property, when it is sold the landlord can claim lettings relief.

Briefly, this relief is currently the lowest of:

• The same amount you got in PPR,
• £40,000, or
• The same amount as the chargeable gain you made from letting your home.

The example that illustrates this in action reproduced from the Gov.uk website follows:

Example:

You make a gain of £120,000 when you sell your home, which you owned for 12 years. You lived in the whole property for 6 years, then you let it out in full for 6 years.

You get Private Residence Relief for the time you lived there (6 years). You also get relief for the last 18 months you owned the property, even though you were not living in it.

This means you get Private Residence Relief for 7.5 of the years (62.5% of the time) you owned the property.

You get Private Residence Relief on the same proportion (62.5%) of your gain. This means you will not pay tax on £75,000 of the gain.

The remaining 37.5% (£45,000) of the gain not covered by Private Residence Relief is your chargeable gain.

If you qualify for Private Residence Relief and have a chargeable gain, you may also qualify for Letting Relief.

Because you made a chargeable gain of £45,000 while letting your property (and got £75,000 in Private Residence Relief) you can claim £40,000 in Letting Relief. This means you’ll pay Capital Gains Tax on £5,000.

Change to letting relief from April 2020

From April 2020, lettings relief will still be available, but only if you as the landlord are living in the same property – in shared occupancy – as your tenant.

Action to take before April 2020

If you are already considering the sale of a rental property, that you have previously occupied as your home for a period of time, you may want to consider bringing your plans forward as this may have a positive impact on any CGT payable when you do sell.

We would be happy to help you consider your options, please call if you need advice on this topic.