companies house made easy

self-assessment deadline extended

Sole traders, entrepreneurs and other individuals who are required to fill out self-assessment tax returns will not receive a late filing penalty if they make their submission on the 1st or 2nd of February.

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The Forum for Private Business has called for schools to play a leading role in encouraging entrepreneurship amongst young people.

google targets welsh SMEs

Search engine giant Google has announced a 12 month campaign to get businesses in Wales to start using the web.

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The Conservative Party’s pledge to scrap the 1% increase in National Insurance Contributions (NI) for 2011 has been kept by the new Tory-Lib Dem coalition government.

The increase had been dubbed a “tax on jobs”, and was warned to impact small businesses and a possible threat to sustaining the economy in its fragile recovery.

"Small businesses did not want this tax on jobs because clearly it would have been a major barrier to staff retention and job creation and would have hindered economic recovery," stated Phil Orford, Chief Executive of the Forum of Private Business (FPB).

"For the majority of employers it would have proved to be an unpopular and unworkable tax rise. Although not perfect, the new coalition government's policy on NI is far better and provides a degree of certainty for business growth now and in the future."

The NI rise was a 1% increase on contributions from employees earning more that £20,800.