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We've scoured the web to get you the most up-to-date advice which includes the most useful tools on offer from the officials themselves.

Effective tax planning is essential if you are to minimise your tax bills. Simple tax planning can significantly reduce your tax liabilities.

The self-assessment tax return is an unavoidable burden if you are liable for self-employed tax or have complicated income tax affairs.

Corporation tax is charged on a company's profits. If you trade as a limited company, ensure that paying this tax is as painless as possible.

National Insurance Contributions (NICs) are payable whether you are self-employed or employed by your own company, although different rates apply.

As well as your legal obligations, you’ll want to ensure that payroll is painless and that you use any opportunities to improve your tax-efficiency.

VAT

Effective VAT planning aims to ensure that VAT is relatively painless, and that you are reclaiming as much as possible of the VAT you pay.

Capital gains are made when you sell something for more money than you paid for it. As a result, you can be subject to tax. Take professional advice.

Business property taxes apply to businesses with commercial premises.There are two commercial property taxes: business rates and stamp duty land tax.

If you have tax problems or face a tax investigation, it pays to seek professional advice and you must act rather than just hoping for the best.

Lightyear launches investment accounts for sole traders

29 August 2023

Lightyear is targeting UK freelancers and sole traders with new business accounts that promise them the chance to earn more interest on company money.

Investment platform Lightyear is targeting more than four million sole director companies in the UK with its new business and investment accounts. Opening up to sole director companies and freelancers first, Lightyear's UK business accounts will have access to 3,500+ international stocks and funds and offers up to 4.5% interest on uninvested company cash.

The investment platform has partnered with BlackRock to give small businesses access to Money Market Funds (MMFs) without the usual high fees or minimum investments. MMFs track the real interest rate, a benefit usually reserved for larger companies. For UK small businesses, Money Market Funds are hard to access, with options in the market reserved for large corporates who can buy in with a £1 million minimum investment. These funds are normally accessed via business investment accounts that you can only open once you're a business of a certain size.

Business bank accounts

According to the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB), the UK is home to 5.5 million private sector businesses - 4.1 million of which have no employees. However, most business accounts with high street banks pay little or no interest and freelancers and sole director businesses often find it hard to access the stock market.

With another interest rate hike on the horizon, Lightyear says that the new business accounts could help freelancers and sole director companies make the most of their company funds, ensuring that excess corporate cash isn't eaten up by inflation while sitting in bank current accounts.

Higher interest rates

Lightyear is looking to open up its business offering to all types of SMEs and larger start-ups over the coming months. Martin Sokk, co-founder and ceo at Lightyear, said: "The retail investment market has come a long way in the last ten years or so … [but] the business market is miles behind. In fact, for the UK's solopreneurs, it basically doesn't exist. We're first focusing on the largest, but most underserved part of the market - sole owner businesses - then we'll open this out to multi-user and larger businesses in the next few months."

Taavet Hinrikus, co-founder of Wise and start-up investor, said: "Businesses in the UK need to make sure their cash is not draining its value against inflation, but they currently don't have enough options to do this. With today's high interest rate climate, Lightyear's launch of both business investment accounts and MMFs is a timely step towards helping entrepreneurs put their cash to work. Their new business accounts enable freelancers to earn interest and invest their otherwise stagnant cash, and their BlackRock MMFs partnership introduces these entrepreneurs to a whole new area of investing, previously reserved for larger corporates."

Written by Rachel Miller.

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