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17 July 2010

Nadine will be taking part in the MK Midnight Moo - a 10 mile walk, starting at midnight, around Milton Keynes in aid of Willen Hospice.

Nadine says:

Willen Hospice is a registered charity that provides specialist care for people whose illness no longer responds to curative treatment (also known as specialist palliative care). They work in

Milton Keynes and the surrounding areas and are based at a quiet lakeside area close to the City Centre. They provide care for people from the age of 18 years upwards and their services are provided 24 hours a day without any cost to the patient or their families. To run the Hospice, it costs over £3 million per annum but only 25% of this money is provided by the NHS.

It's easy to donate online with a credit or debit card - just go to my JustGiving page:

JustGiving sends your donation straight to Willen Hospice and automatically reclaims Gift Aid if you're a UK taxpayer, so your donation is worth even more. I hope you'll join me in supporting Willen Hospice.

10 July 2010

I know several of you have shown interest in running the British 10k London Run for Brain Tumour Research

this year

3 July 2010

Another Ali's Dream event for your diary - Please join us on 3^rd July for our Concert in the Courtyard

The Winslow Concert Band will be playing some great music from the shows whilst we eat and be merry! More acts to be confirmed

Doors will be open from 6 pm, the band will start playing at around 7pm

Bring along your own tables, chairs, picnics and booze – dress up if you want or just come as you are – anything goes.

Tickets are £10 for adults – children free

22 June 2010

George Osbourne will make his first budget of the new Government.It is likely to hit us all hard following the revelations that the Country's finances are a lot worse than previously thought.

17 June 2010

Intercompany Football Match – Boyd Coughlan v CLM Fleet Management

Interested in playing Boyd Coughlan? Give Angelo a call on 01280 823030.

15 June 2010

Buckingham Infinet Board Meeting – Jason Sykes is a Non-Exec Director for the Buckingham Infinet Networking Group.

We get together on a monthly basis with a few like minded professionals for lunch and to help each others' business grow, the lunches are held in the wine bar at the back of Prego's in Buckingham. We are really interested in not only growing the group but also helping businesses.

Would you like to join Jason between 12 -2pm? Just telephone him on 01280 823030 for more details or visit the website

Just to warn you it's not like 'usual' networking events. It very much a non-exec board meeting with nobody trying to sell you something or simply a place to exchange business cards!

It's a sit down 2 course lunch costs £25.00 payable to Brain Tumour Research

11 June 2010

The World Cup kicks off!

This year we will be following the Sky Dreamteam.If you are interested in joining the Boyd Coughlan League, simply register at http://worldfantasyfootball.skysports.com/ pick 11 players and enter our League PIN: 46458

It is also Oving Sports FC annual general meeting where Jason Sykes will be attending to present the Boyd Coughlan Accountants player of the season as part of their ongoing sponsorship package to support local sports.

2 June 2010

Interoffice Football Match – Boyd Coughlan Accountants v Boyd Coughlan IFAs

A highly competitive 6 a side match ended in victory for the Accountants by a slender 1 goal margin in a game that saw a total of 21 goals.Needless to say the Accounts team have been rubbing it into their colleagues, who also had a man advantage for most of the match.

Better luck next time guys.

30 May 2010

The Team Terkelsen bike ride from Paris to Great Horwood is completed in style with the village's children joining the team to ride into the village for a well deserved pint at The Crown in Great Horwood. The team hope to raise over £20K for The Child Bereavement Charity.

To donate please click here

Next year Jason has offered to join the team on their ride. Having found out it's likely to be Lands End to John O'Groats he's having second thoughts!!!

15 May 2010

Ali's Dream Ball tickets £50 per head (Black Tie). For more information please contact Sue Farrinton-Smith on 01296 730230

14 May 2010

Jason Sykes and Georgie Gilson give presentation to Excello Law to help solicitors see the benefits of working closely with accountants and IFA's.

6 May 2010

All change in Government and the likely tax changes that come with that are to be announced in an Emergency Budget due on the 22 June 2010.

25 April 2010

Clay Pigeon Shoot

Taking place at Padbury Hill Farm in aid of Ali's Dream charity. 4 in a team £55 per head including cartridges. Contact Sue Farrington-Smith on 01296 730230

21 March 2010

Great Horwood Mad March Hare Fun Run

Boyd Coughlan Accountants are pleased to continue their sponsorship of the Great Horwood Mad March Hare 5km Fun Run. Entry fees will go towards Great Horwood School PTA and the Boyd Coughlan Team will be raising money for Brain Tumour Research.

We want to raise as much money as possible so please sponsor the team Click here to sponsor

1 November

Mark Battersby, Senior IFA's takes part in a Mountain Climb with his son, raising money for Children in Africa through the Salve International (www.salveinternational.org).

Mark's story...

On Saturday 31st October George my son and I climbed Snowdon.

He had announced that he wanted to climb a mountain on our summer holidays suggesting Everest. When it was pointed out this was a little ambitious for his first proper climb(he’s aged 8)we settled on Snowdon.

We decided that we should try and raise a little money and as Georges school sponsor a Ugandan child through the charity SALVE we felt this to be a suitable cause.

Well it was wet and windy,visability was poor as can be seen on the photo but in a way this added to the achievement. It took us about 3 hours to reach the top and although "he's never going to climb another mountain" deep down I think he's got the climbing bug – good motivation for me as well to get fit as I reach my midlife crisis!

Thank you to all who sponsored us and about £160 has been raised which helps provides the child Tiff who was formerly a street child with a safe house and proper education.

Tiff's story can be found here http://www.salveinternational.org/id38.html

If you would like to him Tiff or any of the dis-advantage children in Africa please visit the website now and make a donation.

30 October

As usual the Boyd Coughlan team are taking part in the Wear It Pink campaign to raise much needed funds for Breast Cancer.

25 October

Joe Davison, Trainee IFA and a committed Northampton Saint Rugby fan took part in the 8^th Annual 'Walk To A Game' Charity Walk in aid of the British Heart Foundation.

Although Joe has only been with us a little over 4 weeks he was not backwards in coming forwards to ask us to sponsor his 17 mile trek.To be honest we were happy to oblige.

Over the years of running the event over £100,000 has been raised.

28 September

Boyd Coughlan IFA arm recruit new trainee IFA, Joe Davison.Joe joins us from Metlife based in Canary Wharf who cancelled their Graduate Training Programme.We were only too happy to give Joe the opportunity to fore fill his ambitions.

In the first few months Joe will be spending the majority of his time training and getting to the ropes, Boyd Coughlan style.

August 2009

18 August

Free professional help for entrepreneurs

A new website has been launched specifically to provide entrepreneurs with free tools, resources, training and guidance from some of the UK's leading authors, accountants and business advisers.

In June 2009 the Governor of The Bank of England predicted that the UK would face a "long, hard slog" back to recovery, so for the unprepared there will still be a great deal of pain ahead before the recession is really over. Therefore www.recessionresources.co.uk has been designed to give business owners access to all the no-cost help and support they need to avoid that pain, including:

A comprehensive diagnostic review of your main opportunities to strengthen your business and personal cashflow - covering everything from improving sales and margins, to working capital management and leading edge tax planning. The findings will be presented in the form of a hard-hitting 'Key Improvement Possibilities' report. As part of this you can also request a...
Detailed benchmarking report - This report will reveal how your business compares to others in your industry across 19 key measures. It will identify where your true strengths and weaknesses lie. It will calculate how much higher your profits and cashflow could be if you were able to emulate the results of your more successful rivals. And it will make preliminary recommendations for what the evidence suggests you can do to beat the recession. To help you to develop these ideas further you can also request a...
Suite of multi-media profit improvement software - Since the only sustainable source of non-repayable cash is making more profitable sales, this software uses hundreds of practical UK examples, case studies and video/audio files to help you to develop a detailed action plan, and estimate the financial impact of that plan. And in case that is not enough you can also request...
Five "How to beat the recession" videos and books - Four of the world's leading business authors have contributed their key thoughts to the website's resource bank. As a result you can watch their specially commissioned videos and claim a complimentary copy of what many regard as the most practical anti-recession book on the market, Nicholas Bate's "Beat the recession".

All of these recession resources, along with the related one-to-one support and guidance from leading professional accountants across the UK, are available free of charge through www.recessionresources.co.uk. Together they will help entrepreneurs to develop, fine tune and implement their action plans so that they come out the other side of the recession stronger than ever before.

Entrepreneurs using the service will not have to switch accountant or do anything to upset existing arrangements with their accountants and business advisers. All of the help provided through www.recessionresources.co.uk is intended to sit alongside rather than replace what their existing advisers are doing for them.

13 August

Join us at Sky Sports and enter a team in their FREE football fantasy league game and you could win £10,000. Just follow the instructions on their website and join our private league 'The Old Replacements' by entering 26340 as the PIN. http://fantasyfootball.skysports.com

11 August

Have you thought how easy you could make your cash flow? no? Even thought, no matter how many of these invoices I send out, how will I know when or whether they will be paid?

Boyd Coughlan Accountants are teaming up with London and Zurich to give you the chance to take control of your cashflow. How? For many businesses setting up a direct debit scheme with their customers can be an expensive and costly exercise, but together we can offer you a relatively low cost solution to those problems. For more information email Jason Sykes or telephone him on 01280 823030.

7 August

Research shows that 37% of new parents have not purchased life insurance, but they believe that the birth of a child us the best time to take out life cover, second only to buying a new home.

Research also shows that 61% of parents said they believed they couldn't afford life cover, and 62% said they need life insurance.

Help is at hand with Aviva introducing a unique offer of £10,000 free life cover to each new parent who have a baby up to 6 months old, until their first birthday.

What's more there are no hidden catches as they won't take details of you bank or credit card. Obviously, there are terms and conditions and exclusions apply, but visit www.aviva.com for details or speak to your financial advisor.

July 2009

29 July

Government proposes new status criteria for construction workers

The 2009 Budget Report contained an announcement that there would be a consultation "to find a long term solution to the issue of false self employment status" in the construction industry. The consultation document has now been published.

The government considers that "false self employment occurs where the underlying characteristics of the relationship are employment but the engagement is presented as self-employment".

However, the tribunals and courts have ruled in many cases that the underlying characteristics of a relationship were not employment, based on the well-established employment case law precedent that the main factors are mutuality of obligation, control and personal service. Therefore the government's key proposal is to introduce new criteria to determine self employed status for income tax and national purposes only, and not for employment law rights purposes.

The government is mainly targeting around 300,000 labour-only subcontractors, as it believes that a large proportion of these are "working under employment terms". It therefore proposes that one or more of the following criteria must be met for self employed status to apply for income tax and national insurance purposes:

Provision of plant and equipment (excluding tools)

Provision of all materials

Provision of other workers

The government has anticipated that there could be a problem if a worker is classed as employed under the proposed criteria but classed as self employed under the established case law criteria, so one of the consultation questions is: "Are there instances where none of the criteria are met, but a worker would, by reference to the usual case law tests in respect of the true terms of an engagement, otherwise be treated as self employed?" This was in fact the outcome in a recent tribunal case, in which labour-only bricklayers were held to be self employed.

If implemented, the proposals would have far-reaching consequences. Any comments on the consultation document should be sent to HM Treasury by 12 October 2009.

23 July

Tax relief on pensions for employees with an income of £150,000 or more will be tapered downwards, falling to 20% for those earning more than £180,000 as a result of the Finance Act 2009, which has received Royal Assent.

The Act also contains anti-forestalling measures designed to prevent high earners from making large additional pension contributions before April 2011, when the new rules become effective.

During the passage of the legislation through parliament, concerns were raised that there was no provision to protect contributions to defined contribution (DC) schemes made less frequently than on a quarterly basis.

This issue has been addressed by an amendment in the Act stating that for contributions made less often than quarterly over the past three years, the special annual allowance will be increased from £20,000 to the average of those contributions, but capped at £30,000.

According to law firm CMS Cameron Mckenna, the amendment will assist high earners who are self-employed or who, in practice, make annual, often variable, contributions.

Helen Dowsey from Aon Consulting, however, believes that the changes outlined in the Act are hastening the demise of final salary schemes.

She said: "The changes announced by the Government in the recent Finance Act which received Royal Assent yesterday, represent another nail in the coffin of pensions tax simplification and could hasten the demise of the final salary scheme in the private sector.

"Much of the detail post-2011 has still to be announced, but the Anti Forestalling measures included in the Act, which will see us through to 2011, make it clear that future pension provision for high earners is fraught with danger and many may be turned off.

"Whilst post-2011 detail is scarce, what is clear is that High Earners should be seeking financial advice. Employers with such staff should be communicating the issues to them as well as giving serious consideration to the shape and structure of their remuneration package going forward."

The proposals relating to tax relief on pensions outlined in the Finance Act 2009 were first announced in Chancellor Alistair Darling's Budget report in April.

June 2009

11 June

The Challenge of Change seminar to be held at Dunkleys Restaurant, near Northampton.

Jason Sykes and guests offer businesses a view of how the business is world has changed in the time of recession and what you can do to survive.

For full details contact the office.

May 2009

Boyd Coughlan Accountants launch their personal affiars checklist Click here for details

April 2009

22 April

The Budget! For our detailed analysis please download our guide available on the home page

March 2009

March is Brain Tumour awareness month. For more information please see the Brain Tumour Research website link.

15th March

The Boyd Coughlan Team enjoy a day out in the sun, getting exercise and raising money for Ali's Dream (part of Brian Tumour Research).

The BCA sponsored Mad March Hare 5Km was enjoyed by over 200 people, most of them seemed to be in the pub afterwards!
www.justgiving.com/madmarch2009

13th March

Boyd Coughlan celebrate Comic Relief in style!

The team took it upon themselves to come to work dressed as sports men and women complete with Red noses.

Angelo became the Pizza man spending the previous night making them whilst the girls were busy making cookies and cakes. All available in exchange for cash for the Comic Relief cause.

February 2009

Boyd Coughlan Accountants announce their chosen charity of the year.

This year our chosen charity of the year is Brain Tumour Research (www.braintumourresearch.org).

The statistics speak for themselves. Something has to be done. Too many people are being faced with the devastating diagnosis each year: brain tumours kill more children and people under the age of forty than any other cancer and five year survival remains the same as it did thirty years ago. We need to raise significant amounts to fund research into this dreadful disease if we are to identify the causes, advance treatments and ultimately find a cure for brain tumours.

16,000 people each year in the UK are diagnosed with a brain tumour

Brain tumours are the biggest cancer killer of UK children

More people under 40 die of a brain tumour than from any other cancer

Only 12% of males diagnosed with a brain tumour and 15% of females survive beyond 5 years (compared with 50% for all cancers)

25% of all cancers spread to the brain

Every year there is a 4% increase in incidence

Brain tumour research is woefully under-funded and therefore lags significantly behind other cancers

With more than 120 different types of tumour, brain tumours are a notoriously difficult disease to diagnose

Brain tumours are a particularly devastating form of cancer with one of the lowest survival rates

Our understanding of other cancers does not readily translate to brain tumours

Patient personality changes as a result of a brain tumour causes massive family disruption

The commercialisation of universities and introduction of performance grading to determine funding, along with the merger of larger cancer charities focused on more pervasive cancers, has dramatically reduced the funds available for brain tumour research

Much more research is needed to discover the cause of brain tumours and to understand their behaviour

Wanna help?

Sponsor me and the Boyd Coughlan Team at http://www.justgiving.com/madmarch2009

January 2009

Read our 2009 Year End Tax Review [pdf]

It's that time of year when the Revenue send tax payers into panic mode with what seems to be an endless stream of television and radio adverts, press releases reminding them they need to get their tax returns in (online - in most cases) before the end end of the month. Not to mention pay them as well!

In light of the current economic climate paying has just become a whole lot easier with the Revenue now negotiating sensible payment terms with those having difficulty in paying.

December 2008

Office closure announcement

Please note that the office will be closed from midday on the 24th December 2008 until 2nd January 2009.

Thank you

Sometimes we don't say thank you enough!

So Boyd Coughlan would like to thank all of our customers, suppliers, team etc for all their business, referrals and help in 2008.

2008 has been a turbulent year for all of us but dispite this, we have managed to grow both our accountants and financial services businesses thanks to our existing customers and many new clients coming to our firm. A lot of our new clients were referred to us by our good clients and for this we are deeply grateful.

We do not know what 2009 will bring and it may prove to be a difficult time given the current economic climate but we will be here looking to support you and new clients.

We wish you every success for 2009!

3rd Another resounding win for the office football team against ESRI (UK) Ltd. 16 - 3 was convincing to say the least.

1st Vat Changes

With the new changes in vat, we have been undated with clients asking about their computerised system. As well as our guidance provided Sage and the major software houses have issued help. Please check with your supplier. For those our you that use Sage check out their website at http://www.sage.co.uk/default.aspx?page=1865

Fixed price agreement whereby clients are paying by standing order arrangement are currently being review and in cases where a credit is being built up we will be issuing refunds for those that ask for them in February after the tax return deadline or offsetting the difference against future work.

November 2008

24th The Pre-Budget Report.

One of the most important budget announcements in recent times was delivered by Alistair Darling today. With the economy looking for investment Gordon Brown's altered ego made a series of announcements to spend our way out of recession.

A number of tax cuts and incentives were introduced including:

Lowering the standard rate of VAT from 17½% to 15%. However those of you using the flat rate scheme beware the full 2½% drop may not have been passed on to your scheme.

Corporate tax increases previously announce for 2009/2010 deferred for a year for SMEs.

For businesses an important announcement was made for how losses could be treated and carried back. Now they can be carried back up to 3 years (up to a cap of £50,000). The one year carry back rule is not restricted.

SMEs will be able to spread tax payments to help cashflow and credit constraints.

RBS bank was praised for not increasing bank charges for SMEs and keeping SMEs overdraft facilities in place for one year.

With the Government borrowing more money than originally budgetted for and this coupled with tax cuts, someone, somewhere has got to pay for it.

Ultimately we all do, if not now but in the future...

From April 2009

Income tax personal allowance will be £6,475.
Also, the NIC upper earnings limit will be aligned to the higher rate band for income tax purposes.

From April 2010

People earning over £100,000 to have personal tax allowances brought into line with those on middle incomes. Personal allowances are to be abolished completely for those earning over £140,000.

From April 2011

Income over £150,000 will be charged at the new tax rate of 45%.
All NIC rates to be increased by ½% for employers and employees. Also from April 2011, the top rate for Class 4 NIC's will increase to 8.5% (normal rate) and 1.5% (higher rate)

More information is available in tax centre and newsletter sections.

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19th Our fortnightly football challenge with ESRI continues at pace with another win 6-4. -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

17th November - Boyd Coughlan Accountants launch their new updated website. To help our SME's we introduced a new section for HR & Health and Safety to help them comply with legislation. It also enables our clients to pay their outstanding fees online via paypal and their credit cards.

5th November - Also saw our football team take on ESRI in the fortnightly meeting. At this time we are currently unbeaten against them, winning on 5th November 2008 by 12 goals to 8. Angelo Mendicino was the star of the show scoring a club record of 9 goals in a game.

Angelo Mendicino with the ball and without it!