Greetings Friends of Oury Clark,
Happy New Year! And that can mean only one thing, it’s time to do your personal tax return. Actually, last April was the time to start prepping your tax return, but the deadline is the 31st of Jan. As ever, our heroes Oury & Clark are on hand to help you battle through the paperwork and make sure that you aren’t ping ponging around with the Taxman. If, like them, you are on top of everything, sit back and watch them enjoy a game of Pong with our friends at HMRC.
If you need some support to get everything shipshape fear not, we can help. Either get in touch with your usual contact or get in touch with us direct by emailing here.
We can’t Nix the NICS, but we can help (a bit).
Employers’ National Insurance Contributions (NICS) are quite the hot potato at the moment. Whilst we would love to tell you that our tax ninjas have visited 11 Downing Street and persuaded Rachel Reeves that the increase to Employers’ NICS is a terrible idea, we can’t. But, our Financial Services experts have a way to help you mitigate some of the increase.
If you look deep in the instruction manual for your company’s pension scheme you might just find a section labelled “use of the salary sacrifice lever”. It’s probably written in horrendous jargon, but what it boils down to is this – You take on the employees’ pension contribution (min 3%) in return for them taking the same % drop in gross pay.
This is money that people never see in their pay packet anyway, so they will, in fact, be better off each month. The company will be better off because your PAYE bill will have been reduced, according to our estimates, by an average of £500 per employee over the course of the year.
It’s a flat fee for us to help you set up, which means you only need five or more people to opt-in to start seeing gains in the first year, and those gains will keep mounting up year on year.
You can read more about it here and see some illustrations, but if you want to know more it might be easiest to drop our FInancial Services team a line directly.
Flying Visit to the UK – What’s Your ETA? Changes to UK Entry Requirements
At Oury Clark we have already scheduled business trips to Los Angeles, Boston and Atlanta (get in touch if you want to meet up!) and we know that a lot of you are planning on travelling to the UK in the near future. This means that you are likely to need an Electronic Travel Authorisation (ETA).
From the 8th of January visitors from the U.S, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and other non-European nations will need to have an ETA to enter the country, even if they are just in transit to their final destination.
To receive your ETA you just need to fill out a simple online form and pay a £10 fee. Most people should receive authorisation approval within a few hours, but it could take up to three business days so plan accordingly.
From the 2nd of April this will also apply to EU nationals – in case anyone was feeling left out. It won’t apply to Citizens of the U.K., Ireland or those with valid UK visas.
Not to be left out, the EU is introducing a similar system – European Travel Information and Authorisation System (ETIAS) – in early Spring. It will apply to visa exempt foreigners from 60 nations, who can sort the paperwork online, pay a €7 fee and receive approval within 96 hours.
If you haven’t had enough of additional travel paperwork fear not, the EU is also planning to roll out the new Entry/Exit System (EES) later in the year. Initially scheduled for roll out last November, no firm date other than “sometime in 2025” has been confirmed. We will keep you posted.
Want to Spread Your Wings to the USA but Don’t Know Where to Start?
At Oury Clark we’ve helped a lot of people to set up businesses in the UK from overseas, now we are looking outward and helping our ambitious customers crack global markets. Because of our strong links with Oury Law in Denver CO (the clue’s in the name right?) our first open event of the year will be for those of you with an interest in expanding your businesses to the Good ‘Ol USA.
Select USA, part of the US State Department will be joining us for a webinar exploring the US market on the 30th of January at 3pm GMT.
The Webinar will give attendees an overview of North American market exploration and the inside track on how ambitious companies can get the most out of the SelectUSA Investment Summit in May.
To learn more and sign up click here
The password is: 11052025