Health and safety

The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) has developed ‘An easy guide to Health and Safety’, featuring a range of tools and guidance to help small and medium sized businesses understand health and safety. The advice available will help you understand what you do and don’t need to do to avoid unnecessary paperwork and effort.

Licences

The government provides a search tool for you to use in order to work out if you need a licence for your business.

You may also find information relevant to your business on this government licence browser, which has helpful advice for those working with animals or children, or those dealing in things like scrap metal and waste.

Support from HMRC

Videos, webinars and email alerts

Sign up to help and support emails from HMRC. Receive email alerts about a range of help and support products available, including:

• live and recorded webinars
• YouTube videos
• online guides

HMRC Community Forum

Visit the HMRC Community Forum to get help, support and the guidance you need on Self Assessment. You can ask questions and get top tips.

Simple record keeping and Income Tax applications

To help small businesses with record keeping, HMRC has worked with software suppliers that have produced simple record keeping applications, some of which meet the specifications necessary for documenting expenses or for when using cash basis. Many of the applications are free and are compatible with mobile devices.

Self-employed tax bill ready reckoner

The ready reckoner tool is for self-employed people who have no other taxable income and are entitled to a basic Personal Allowance. You fill in your estimated weekly or monthly profit and it shows you roughly how much money you’ll need to meet your Income Tax and Class 4 National Insurance bill.

Tax help facts sheets

A wide-ranging collection of downloadable leaflets, factsheets and booklets issued by HMRC.

Simpler income tax: cash basis

Using cash basis means that small, unincorporated businesses with incomes of less than £82,000 per annum only need to declare money when it comes in and out of their business. If this is you, it means that at the end of the tax year you won’t have to pay Income Tax on money you didn’t receive in your accounting period. This is opposed to traditional accounting.

Simpler income tax: simplified expenses

Simplified expenses are a way of calculating some of your business expenses using flat rates instead of working out your actual business costs. This is particularly useful where there is a mix of business and private use, e.g. motoring expenses, use of home for business.

Business records for the self-employed

The records you must keep of your business incomes and outgoings for your Self Assessment return if you’re self-employed.

'Expenses and benefits from employment' toolkit

This guide helps employers, tax agents and advisers fill in end of year forms:

• P11D
• P11D(b)

Tax agents and advisers may use this guidance to help clients with expenses and benefits from employment matters.

Help for Companies over £10m with tax issue

There are around 170,000 mid-sized businesses registered in the UK. Businesses with either a turnover of more than £10 million or more than 20 employees, and undergoing growth, can now seek expert help from HMRC growth support specialists.

YouTube and HMRC

Video guides on topics like PAYE, record keeping, VAT, completing tax returns, taking on employees, motoring costs, patents and more.