Strategy Services

The following minimum contribution rates apply as of 1 April 2019:

• Employer contribution: 3%
• Employee contribution: 5% (including government tax relief)
• Combined employee/employer contribution: 8%

Use our calculator to work out how much you’ll need to pay towards an employee’s pension per year.

There are many reasons for creating a formal business plan, here’s a few:

• To aid financial investment applications such as start up loans,  loans for growth or to attract outside investors. A well written and well researched plan goes a long way and will reassure potential investor’s confidence in your abilities to go forward.
• To conduct feasibility studies, to give you and your partners the confidence to back your ideas and go forward with the business.
• Determining your business strategy, to keep everyone in the business focused on the key targets.

There are various costs that can be claimed for, some of which you may not think of. Below are a list of the various costs that relief can be claimed on:

• Staff costs (Salary, Employer’s NI & Pension contributions)
• Any materials consumed during the R &D process (you can also include a proportion of your Light & Heat costs and your water rates)
• Subcontractor costs (65% is allowed if they are an unconnected person)
• Agency provided workers (65% is allowed if the agency is not a connected entity)
• Cost of the software used for the R&D process

Other expenditure such as travel & subsistence, car hire & motor costs, telephone etc would not be allowable for R&D tax relief purposes

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The criteria for whether a project qualifies for the scheme is all down to whether it is considered a "Research & Development" activity. This is not a straight forward criteria and has little clarification from the HMRC. This often means that the judgement from the individual tax offices and investigators can vary from area to area. This means it's evermore important to provide a detailed supporting technical document with each claim.

For this tax, the qualification of "Research and Development" should not be considered necessarily in it's everyday meaning as here it is really the embodiment of criteria, case studies and grey areas.

To start off the process of qualification you need consider whether your company has undergone any innovative activities:

• Has your company enhanced any existing products?
• Has your company created any new products?
• Has your company undertaken any work to improve processes?
• Has your company made improvements in services in order to reduce costs, win more business or improve service levels?

If your company has undertaken any of the above you could qualify for R&D Tax Credits.‍

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You must assess all of your staff for eligibility but the ones you need to enrol must follow the criteria in the table below:

The State Pension Age is 65 for men and 62 for women. In conjunction with this you must choose a pension provider, relevant software for eligibility checks and inform your staff of what is going to happen. Here is a link for the Pension Regulators guide to Auto Enrolment.