Here is this week’s news round-up for home business, micro business, sole-traders, freelancers, self-employed and any one who is interested in small business news from the United Kingdom and Ireland:
- Darling plans Labour’s greenest budget yet: Chancellor under pressure from business leaders to cut corporation tax and scale back plans to tax non-domiciles
- Business tax levels ‘damaging Uk’: High taxes on business are damaging the UK economy, the Confederation of British Industry says.
- New small business working group must have real influence, insists FPB: The FPB is urging Prime Minister Gordon Brown to place a new small business working group at the heart of his enterprise policies.
- Small Talk: Imprint battle wide open as Hydrogen runs out of gas: The takeover saga of recruitment group Imprint was scheduled to end this Friday, when the company’s board was set to recommend a bid from rival Hydrogen at an extraordinary general meeting.
- FPB Questions claim that small firms are progressing: The FPB is responding to a government survey suggesting that small firms are progressing steadily by pointing to research that suggests otherwise.
- Government loses trust of small businesses: An overwhelming majority of small businesses have said that their confidence in the Government has diminished since the 2007 Budget
- FPB delivers budget warning following latest survey of small businesses: The FPB, a business support organisation that represents more than 25,000 small and medium-sized businesses in the UK, has issued a stark warning to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Alistair Darling, ahead of the 2008 Budget.
- New Approach to business support on its way, say government: This week’s budget is likely to include the introduction of a new wide ranging policy aimed at improving the government’s much criticised small business support system.
- FSB welcomes Budget speech with no nasty surprises: The Federation of Small Businesses welcomed a Budget speech with few alarms and surprises for the UKs 4.5 million-strong small business community.
- FPB responds to 2008 budget speech: The FPB is responding to claims made in the 2008 Budget speech by Chancellor of the Exchequer, the Rt Hon Alistair Darling MP, that the UK is “one of the best places in the world in which to do business”. Research from the FPB suggests that most owners of small businesses disagree. In a recent ballot of members, part of the quarterly Referendum newsletter, 97% of respondents believed that recent tax changes have, in fact, made the UK a worse place in which to do business.
- Darling courts entrepreneurs with extra funding: Alistair Darling attempted to court entrepreneurs in his first budget as chancellor by announcing a series of new funding measures.
- Websites ‘do not update regularly’: Small businesses do not update their websites regularly – or, in some cases, at all – new research has revealed.
- Online visibility ‘key concern for SMBs’: Small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) are keen to address their online visibility, according to new research.
- Small Businesses: Entrepreneurs promised tax relief and less red tape: Measures aimed at boosting the UK’s small business sector and encouraging innovation were at the centre of the Budget, the Chancellor claimed.
- New limits on firms offering tax break on share options: Many employees of small businesses may lose their entitlement to tax relief under Budget provisions on the enterprise management incentive (EMI) scheme, despite an announcement from the Chancellor that he would make the initiative more generous.
- Revenue increases fines on self assessment tax returns: Taxpayers who mis-state their income on self-assessment tax returns will face much higher penalties following new measures introduced in the Budget, it emerged yesterday.
- 2008 Budget will do little for Scotland’s small firms, warns FPB: The FPB, which represents 25,000 smaller businesses across the UK, is warning that the 2008 Budget, announced by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the Rt Hon Alistair Darling MP, will do little to support smaller firms in Scotland.
- Tax changes ‘will undermine plan to nurture innovation’: A government plan to aid the development of Britain’s hi-tech and innovative industries has been criticised as a “slap across the face” of industry after the Chancellor cut tax relief for start-up businesses.
As always this list is not exhaustive, but I hope it will give you a little overview. — ST.
Leave your writing (comments) on our wall.
