Building & Construction

Updates including the draft legislation for Inheritance Tax relief for business and agricultural property from April 2026, MTD HMRC guidance for digitally excluded taxpayers, Recent tribunal rulings clarify VAT on Chocolate covered biscuits and SDLT/ATED tribunal partial win and advisory rates for electric cars.

Long project timelines and slow payments can cause problems with cashflow in construction businesses. We explore the pros and cons of invoice finance facilities.

If late payments are holding you back or you're turning down bigger contracts due to upfront costs, invoice finance could be the smart funding solution you need. In this blog, we explore the key signs it might be right for your construction business and how it can support sustainable growth.

Cashflow challenges are the number one cause of construction business failures. Even profitable firms can run into serious trouble without the right systems in place. From poor contracts to late invoicing and retention delays, this blog highlights the seven biggest cashflow mistakes and what you can do to avoid them.

Deciding whether to buy or lease new plant or equipment is a crucial choice for manufacturing and engineering businesses. Each option impacts cash flow, flexibility, and long-term costs. Understanding the advantages of both can help you make the right financial decision to support your business growth and operational needs.

VAT significantly impacts property development and investment, affecting costs, tax recovery, and compliance. Understanding VAT rules for residential, commercial, and holiday properties is essential for avoiding costly mistakes and maximising benefits. This guide offers practical insights and key strategies to help developers and landlords confidently navigate VAT complexities in their projects.

Articles for December 2024 including: FHLs abolition - Clarification and more protections announced for leaseholders

Articles for November2024 including: Autumn Budget 2024 – a summary for property landlords and Renters Rights Bill 2024 – an update

VAT is always a complex tax with many different rules, and some rules will only apply in certain situations. In this blog we have reviewed some of the more complex VAT rules and the things you need to consider.

Thinking of purchasing a commercial property? Planning ahead offers the potential opportunity for huge tax savings! We share 5 top tips to consider when purchasing a commercial property.

Overall summary of the budget which includes a Capital gains Tax Reduction, Changes to domicile and residency and more...

Yesterday, Chancellor Jeremy Hunt presented his second Autumn Statement, but with a very different tone to the gloomy announcements made this time last year. The Chancellor announced initiatives with a massive focus on pushing growth in the economy. The main question you’ll all no doubt have is… “how does it affect me?”, let’s take a look…

We take a look at the ins and outs of VAT in the property & construction world with examples and tips to help you maximise your reclaims, steer clear or unexpected bills and make your property ventures a breeze.

Protection insurance is key to protecting your future. Are you aware of the options available to you and are you certain there are no loopholes of gaps in your cover? We explore the differences between Life Cover, Critical illness cover and income protection and the benefits of seeking guidance from an independent financial advisor can help you to ensure you have sufficient cover.

Finding any sort of contamination on your property can easily burn a hole in your pocket, but this valuable tax relief may help you recover some of your money!

Property investors are often keen to understand the options for structuring their portfolio. Is a limited company the best option? We look at some of the advantages of using a limited company or a special purpose vehicle for your investment portfolio.

Group structures are not just for large companies, they can be used very effectively for smaller owner managed businesses to save tax and de-risk their assets.

Sometimes the rules regarding VAT are not quite what you expect! Here we go into detail on 5 VAT rules that you may not have known existed.

Ever wondered if you are declaring the correct amount of VAT on your sales invoices? Or that what you are reclaiming on your purchases is the most that you can? We take a look at why a VAT health check could be a good thing for your business.

What does it take to build a successful business? We look at one of the most fundamental requirements- the right mindset.

There are many challenges to running your own business. Find out which ones we’ve come across and how we’ve overcome them.

We look at how effective invoicing and how automated systems can help you to get paid faster by your customers.

Property investors often fail to realise that they have a duty to register under CIS if they carry out certain activities. Failure to register could be costly as it is likely to result in significant penalties being levied for non-compliance.

What do you do if your subcontractor or professional disagrees with your treatment of their income under CIS? You have basically three actions you can take.

If you carry out any sort of building works on a property and engage labour you have to be wary of the rules under the construction industry scheme where tax has to be potentially stopped on the labour element of the service provided. Professionals are often consider exempt from CIS- but is this right? The answer unsurprisingly is not always!

For many people building their perfect home is just a dream. However over recent years we are seeing more and more cases of individuals looking to do just that. To ensure that individuals enjoy the same VAT advantages as professional builders check out the DIY Housebuilders Scheme.

Are you building your own business or looking to climb the corporate ladder? How many hours should you work? Is a four hour work week possible? If not what is realistic for success?

Free money!! Every company director loves a tax rebate, particularly when you have incurred expenditure on a project and someone tells you that not only is this expenditure tax deductible but for the same money spent you can get additional tax relief of 130% on the expenditure and either get a lovely big tax rebate by trading in losses at 14.5% or reduce your tax liabilities down significantly.

With energy costs going through the roof it could make sense to make small eco-friendly improvements to your property which can reduce running costs and also add value to your property.

Having run an accountancy practice for almost 30 years I have had the good fortune to meet literally thousands of business owners. Many have created great companies but many others have unfortunately failed. Reasons given for failure are numerous. Many are genuine such as Covid or an unforeseen bad debt resulting in severe cashflow problems. Most however are due to a basic misunderstanding of what is required to create a successful business.

The pandemic has had a dramatic effect on all our lives over the last two years. Businesses have had to adapt quickly to a changing environment. One area that may have been overlooked is the need to review your health and safety compliance.

Owning your own property is part of the culture in the UK with over 65.1% of houses owned by the households in 2019. Surprisingly, whilst we are ahead of countries like Germany and France, most European countries have extremely high levels of ownership (Italy 72.3%, Greece 75.4%, Poland 84.2%). So why the disparity? In simple terms the reason is the property rental market. In 2020 the share of households occupied by private renters hit 18.7%, so around 4.44 million households were privately rented in England in 2020.

The new super deduction will run for two years from 1 April 2021 and is a radical new “super-deduction” of 130% for investment in new plant.

The long delayed VAT Domestic Reverse Charge for the Construction Industry was finally introduced on 1st March 2021.

The flat rate scheme was first introduced in the 2002 budget and is a simple way for small businesses to account for VAT on their supplies.

If building a business was so simple then why do almost half of businesses which set up fail within the first 5 years? Construction is even worse with 2 out of every 3 startups failing in the first 5 years! It isn’t the lack of cash but this is often the nail in the coffin. It all started on day 1 with the failure of the business owner to understand what is really involved in becoming a successful business owner.

If you're looking to make energy-efficient improvements, these grants may help!

Need finance to cope with your business growth? Have you considered factoring? If not then please read our article which looks at what is factoring and 8 key points to consider when choosing a factor.

The construction industry scheme is designed to stop tax on invoices raised by the self employed or limited companies (called subcontractors) who provide labour within the construction industry to businesses which are also within the construction industry (called contractors).

Poor book-keeping alone doesn’t usually bring a business down. Usually the accountant will step in to clean the books up and calculate the company’s tax liabilities with time to spare. But it’s different for construction, primarily due to CIS.

The off-payroll working rules, known as IR35, were introduced in 2000 to ensure that individuals who work like an employee, but through an intermediary such as a company, pays similar taxes to other employees. Important changes are being introduced in April 2020. There has been a lot of press recently (and most of it negative) stating how many businesses are going to be badly impacted by the changes.

Over the past 30 years we’ve worked with countless small and medium sized building and construction businesses. Many have flourished but unfortunately some have failed…. And cash flow is one issue which comes up time and time again.

Unfortunately failures in construction are common place. In 2018 Carillion went down owing £7bn, bringing down countless other businesses. Sometimes it is impossible to avoid the collapse of a business.But there's actions you can take to reduce the risk

Are you really sure that your employees are self -employed? HMRC have a great toolkit to help you. If in doubt we can help

The delay in the domestic reverse charge VAT for construction services was welcomed by many in the Construction industry as it has given affected businesses another year to prepare for the changes. The changes have been detailed by us in a previous blog and will have a major impact on the construction industry. Here’s our plan to ensure a smooth implementation of the changes.

In the Government’s ongoing campaign to eliminate the effects of fraud, HMRC are bringing in new legislation from 1 October 2019 that will significantly affect the construction industry. This new legislation is the “Construction Reverse Charge”. The changes are major and if you provide labour in the construction industry then you will be impacted!