TELEPHONE INTERNAL PROBLEMS – BT

We would like to apologize for any inconvenience caused regarding our telephone system. Vertice Services made a decision to change the telephone system in order to improve customer services but BT didn’t delivery the services as agreed which caused a telephone disruption during two weeks in MAY/JUNE. I personally would like to apologize for any inconvenience caused.

Rodolfo Basilio

Vertice Services director

Get the right insurance for your business

We have seen that many businesses do not have any kind of insurance.

There are many different types of business insurance available - but which ones do you need to have, which should you have, and which don't you need at all?

This tool helps you to answer these questions and assess what types of insurance you need. It will help you decide what cover you must have, and what cover it is advisable to have.

Click Below to find out what kind of insurance your business needs.

Emergency Budget 2010

Chancellor George Osborne has confirmed that an emergency Budget will be held on Tuesday 22 June 2010.

Tax credits – When you need to renew your tax credit claims

Renew your tax credits claim as quickly as possible. The sooner you renew, the sooner the Tax Credit Office can work out your payments for the coming tax year. If you delay you may be paid too much tax credits – an ‘overpayment’ - that you have to pay back. If you don't renew, your payments will stop.

If you received both an Annual Declaration form and an Annual Review notice

Give the information asked for as quickly as possible – and definitely no later than 31 July. Your renewal pack will tell you if you have a different deadline.

The earlier you renew, the sooner the Tax Credit Office can make sure:

· they paid you the correct amount for the last tax year

· that you are getting the right amount of money for the coming tax year

If you delay, you could build up an overpayment that you have to pay back.

If you can’t provide details of actual income for the last tax year, still renew using an estimate of your income.

A tax year runs from 6 April one year to 5 April the next.

If you've given details of estimated income - deadline for providing actual income

This is usually 31 January but check Step C of your Annual Review notice to see if you've been given a different date.

If you miss the deadline for renewing

If the Tax Credit Office doesn’t hear from you by 31 July - or the deadline on your renewal pack - they will:

· stop your tax credits payments

· send you a statement showing you whether you've been paid too much, or not enough, tax credits

You then have a further 30 days to provide the information asked for. If you don't provide the information within 30 days, you will usually have to make a new tax credits claim.

The Tax Credit Office will ask you to pay back any overpayments from the last tax year - and any payments made to you since 6 April.

If you received an Annual Review notice only

You only need to renew if the information in your Annual Review notice has changed, or if anything is wrong, missing or incomplete.

Give the information asked for as quickly as possible - and definitely no later than 31 July. Your renewal pack will tell you if you have a different deadline.

The earlier you renew, the sooner the Tax Credit Office can make sure:

· they paid you the correct amount for the last tax year

· that you are getting the right amount of money for the coming tax year

If you delay, you could build up an overpayment that you have to pay back.

A tax year runs from 6 April one year to 5 April the next.

If you miss the deadline

If the Tax Credit Office doesn’t hear from you, they:

· treat the information on your Annual Review notice as correct and complete for the whole of the period shown

· check the payments you received against the information they have about your circumstances

· make a final decision on your award for the last year

If the Tax Credit Office decides to carry on paying you tax credits and then later find that you knew this information was not right or incomplete, you may be asked to pay back any money you should not have had. You might also be asked to pay a penalty.

Be prepared for VAT changes

Businesses are being urged to prepare for changes in the way VAT returns are filed.

HM Revenue & Customs has urged businesses and traders to make sure they are ready for the changes, which come into effect next month.

Under the new system, businesses and contractors, including sole traders and limited companies, will be obliged to file their VAT returns online if their annual turnover is in excess of £100,000.

Traders registering for VAT for the first time will also need to do so using HMRC's online service.

The department warned that anyone issuing an invoice with VAT included, without registering could face a penalty charge.

Stephen Banyard, director of HMRC's Business Customer Unit, said: "If you're a VAT-registered trader or an employer, make sure you're up to speed with all the VAT and PAYE changes coming in this spring.

"If you're well prepared for the changes, you'll help avoid a last-minute rush when the new measures take effect."

The changes also mean that all VAT payments made to HMRC will have to be made using electronic methods.

Beware Tax Email Scams

Many people are currently waiting for a tax rebate from the Tax Office, as they have claimed for losses to be set against an earlier year's income. If you are expecting such a tax refund, or even if you are not, take care not to be drawn in by emails that claim to have a tax rebate ready for you. These emails tend to ask for details of your bank account to pay the refund into, but they are scams.

The UK tax office HMRC does not send emails to taxpayers informing them of tax rebates. All such emails are fraudulent, and potentially very dangerous. You should not respond to the email. Do not click on any link embedded in the email as this may allow the scammers to get to your computer through a virus included in the link.

Fraudulent emails normally stand out as they are not correctly addressed to you personally. The email may have missing address details or say 'Dear Subscriber' or 'Dear Taxpayer'. Some scam emails include what looks like a tax refund form including a fax back number. You should never complete such a form sent to you by email supposedly from HMRC. To complete genuine HMRC forms yourself you need to log into the HMRC secure website using the login details which will have been sent to you in the post.

New penalties for late PAYE

From this current tax year the Taxman can impose penalties if you are late in paying over the payroll and CIS deductions you make in the tax year. 'Late' in this context means the payment reaches the Tax Office after the 19th of each month, (or 22nd when paying electronically).

Until now the Taxman did not impose penalties or interest on small employers if all the payroll deductions for the year reached him by 19th April (or 22nd) after the end of the tax year. Large employers (those with more than 250 employees) have been subject to surcharges for late payment for some years, as they have been obliged to pay over all deductions electronically.

Those surcharges for large employers have been scrapped and all employers are now subject to the same penalties. However, small employers do not have to pay over their deductions electronically.

The penalty will be based on the total amount of deductions paid late for the tax year and will be calculated based on the number of times payments are late in a tax year as follows ...

- Late once – no penalty
- Late 2 to 4 times – 1% penalty
- Late 5 to 7 times – 2% penalty
- Late 8 to 10 times – 3% penalty
- Late 11 or more times – 4% penalty

The penalty applies to the total amount that is late in the tax year (ignoring the first late payment in that tax year).

If any payment is made more than six months late a further 5% charge is added to the above penalties. Where the payment is over 12 months late another 5% penalty charge is added.

However, these penalties cannot be imposed automatically as at present the Taxman does not know how much PAYE etc you should be paying over month on month. Although, when the Taxman inspects your PAYE records and it is apparent that you been late in paying over your payroll deductions, he has every right to impose these heavy penalties for late payment.