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Who is your ideal customer?

If there is a particular type of customer that is ideally placed to benefit from the goods or services you sell it makes sense to target any marketing activity in their direction, rather than adopting a scatter gun approach. Take a good look at your

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Scottish charities regulations

Charities in Scotland are regulated by an independent body. This body is called the Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator (OSCR). The OSCR is the regulator and registrar for over 25,000 Scottish charities including community groups, religious

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Searching for details about property

There are a number of online tools available to help find information about a property in England or Wales, even if you do not own it. The service is available on GOV.UK and allows users to search for property by postcode, map, title number or

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HMRC increases interest rates again

The Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) met on 2 August 2023 and voted 6-3 in favour of raising interest rates by 25 basis points to 5.25% in a move to further contain inflation. One member of the MPC voted to keep the rate at 5% whilst

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VAT treatment of road fuel costs

There are four options for the VAT treatment of road fuel costs. Treat all of the VAT as input tax because 100% is used for business purposes. This option only applies to fuel for cars used exclusively for business purposes, such as pool

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Need to tell HMRC about extra income?

There is an online tool that allows taxpayers to check if they need to notify HMRC about additional income. The online tool can be found at www.gov.uk/check-additional-income-tax. This could include earnings from: selling goods, for example at

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Being made bankrupt

The bankruptcy process applies to people living in England, Wales or Northern Ireland. There is a separate process known as sequestration in Scotland. Bankruptcy is a form of insolvency and is normally only suitable for those people who are unable to

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The end of scam calls selling financial products?

Are we about to see the end of phone calls selling sham financial products? An 8-week consultation by the Home Office and other government departments is aiming to do just this. The consultation, published on 2 August, covers proposals to ban cold

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HMRC recommends early filing of tax returns

The 2022-23 tax year ended on 5 April 2023 and the new 2023-24 tax year started on 6 April 2024. Many taxpayers will be happy to leave dealing with their 2022-23 tax returns until later this year or even until January 2024. The 31 January 2024 is

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State Pension if you retire abroad

If you are retiring abroad, you are still entitled to claim your UK State Pension as long as you have built up a suitable amount of qualifying years of NIC contributions. However, your entitlement to yearly increases in the State Pension only apply

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