Well there's a turn up for the books. A budget that was largely welcomed by the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB), and even described as 'clever' in an FT headline - though this was subsequently re-written to sound more wary.
The 'clever' epithet originally came from the CBI who also described Mr Darling's last budget before the election as 'modest but helpful'. Gosh.
You knew he'd done something clever when the British Bankers' Association tweeted that they were "not convinced on the "small business credit adjudicator"". So one of the most hated organisations in the UK is unconvinced by something that's going to threaten their hold on business lending. Excellent.
But what about all that nitty gritty stuff we cover on our workshops for freelances and small businesses?
We've known about the one major change to income tax since December – the new 50% tax rate for income over £150K. This will affect 1% of earners in the UK, so let's not dwell.
Away from the headlines about first time buyers and cider you can find some nods in the right direction for self-employed people and small businesses.
If you're wanting to buy a lot of kit for your new business, Mr D doubled the annual investment allowance to £100K. So this new-ish allowance is now even more attractive.
If you have a shop front or business premises paying business rates, you may be one of 345,000 that won't have to pay them for one year from October. (It's based on rateable value.)
The one threshold which seems to be going up is VAT. You can now wait until you have an annual turnover of £70,000 before you have to register for VAT.
On the down side, the upper limit for using the VAT flat rate scheme has now been stuck at £150,000 for three years.
Lots of small businesses have been complaining about the lack of access to loans, with the suspicion that the banks are hoarding money unnecessarily. The Chancellor seems to have lost patience – hence this idea of a "small business credit adjudicator".
Goodness knows how this will work, but speaking as someone who runs a small business, this is the first budget I can remember where there's an acknowledgement that small businesses actually exist.
Tucked away in the Treasury's budget documents is a description of better online support for SMEs, a personalised version of Business Link, and ways of "providing better access to relevant tax guidance and flexible tax payment plans to help businesses manage their cash flow".
It almost sounds, well…sensible.
Before we get too carried away, it's worth reminding ourselves that lots might be undone with a change of government.
And yes – we might have another budget in June/July.
People who have only ever been employed are frequently dismayed that there appear to be no 'rules' – just guidelines.
I've never had a problem with this. Every business is different, and there needs to be flexibility in the system.
Once in a while a test case appears which suddenly brings the guidelines into focus. This week we have had one of those moments – of interest to everyone in the media industry who has asked me if they could put their clothes and hair-dos against tax.
Well you can't. Except perhaps to keep especially warm and cozy.
You probably spotted this already, thanks to the incendiary use of the word 'naked' in the story tags. Search engines seem to love that.
As we head towards the end of another financial year it’s time to consider what’s on the horizon for small businesses like you and me, and how much Ryman’s makes on those portable metal file holders we keep all our paperwork in.
First off, there’s a budget coming up, which always means a flurry of activity for me as I update all the handouts for our business skills training.
This year promises to be handout hell, as this budget will also be the last before a general election. The chances of some kind of emergency budget afterwards are high. Two budgets! Will my laser printer be able to cope?
Recent trainees will know I’ve been trying to re-invent my ‘tax bathtub’® – the graphic disaster that is my attempt to show income tax in visual form.
The bathtub for 2010-11 has needed re-plumbing to allow for the new top rate of 50% for income over £150,000. But it also needs to spring a leak at the right moment to start wiping out the personal allowance once you have over £100,000 of taxable income.
It’s not pretty, graphic-wise. (And all this just to represent the top 2% of UK earners.)
We’ve known about this for months now. So is there likely to be anything new in the pre-election budget?
Probably no more surprises. Mr Darling has no money to play around with and won’t want to frighten the horses before we all go to the polls.
So what might happen when we’ve had the election and frightening horses is back on the agenda?
One view is that VAT may go up – to 19% or 20%. This is because VAT is one of the two main ways the Treasury collects our money, the other being income tax.
The 50% top rate of tax will probably stay for a while, whoever gets in. Watch someone reduce it just before the election after this one, in a vote-attracting gesture.
More likely: the point at which people pay taxes will not move up in line with inflation. In other words the thresholds will stay much the same, slowly putting more people into higher tax bands as their income rises slightly.
For those of us who are limited companies the Tories say they would reduce the small biz rate from 21% to 20%, and the mainstream rate from 28% to 25%. Keep an eye out for any pronouncements from other parties, but don’t hold your breath.
Whatever happens, you’ll get all the latest on forthcoming courses, and via the accompanying downloads on our site. And don’t forget there is free stuff on the site as well if we don’t see you on one of our workshops.
I spent Saturday at one of the most inspiring conferences I've been to. It was called Africa Gathering, and it was the first event under that banner to focus on mobile and other technologies being used in Africa. (My small role was to lead a discussion on distance learning for African trainees, something we've been doing for 4 years.)
I couldn't attend all the presentations, but the few that I sat in on were a revelation. Ken Banks talked about a nifty piece of software he's developed called frontlineSMS, which allows people to send alerts and information, not via the internet, but by hooking up a laptop to a mobile phone network. Mobiles are ubiquitous, but the internet is not. So SMS is a great way to disseminate info. (Check out kiwanja.net for more.)
Simon Berry spoke about his project colalife, which is based on the premise that if Coca Cola can reach every corner of Africa then why not use the same delivery network to distribute medicine, mosquito nets or anythings else. Simon's use of social media (Facebook, Twitter, etc) and old media (the BBC's PM programme) is an object lesson.
What made these speakers (and many others) stand out was their extraordinary tenacity in the face of big business sluggishness, and a seemingly limitless amount of energy to help people find their own solutions to local problems.
And here's a video from an Austrian agency which gives a flavour of how mobile phones are changing the lives of ordinary Africans – Tanzanians in this case.
Long may the dialogue continue. See you at the next Africa Gathering in Brussels?
There was enough in this year's budget to keep every headline writer happy, so I'm looking forward to browsing thought the newsstand tomorrow morning.
Most will probably focus on the devilish old labour plan to up the top rate of tax. I hereby predict that they will ignore the fact that 1% of the population earn over 150%, and that 99% of earners won't be affected. (I know I'm not. *sigh*)
Leaving that aside, what does this mean for survivors of our sole trader training courses? Well, I haven't been through all the budget small print yet, but I promise I will post the relevant bits here.
Most handouts are already updated, and it's mainly the VAT ones that need a quick tweak.
Enormous number of responses (well about 3, but one was actually online – thanks James) to my last blog about Twitter etc..
I've now met quite a few people who are almost as confused as me. One trainee said she uses Twitter for work-related messages, and Facebook for proper friends. But is now wondering if that's the best way round.
I also read someone else on the subject who does exactly the opposite and tweets for friends only. But is wondering if THAT's the best way round.
Another contact has pointed me at Hootsuite for Twitter. (Surely Tootsuite would have been a cleverer name.) It looks like it does what Tweetdeck does, but I can't summon up the energy to look.
I'm also intrigued by the demographics. I'm the only person in my extended family (apart from my dad) tweeting and not many of my oldest and closest friends seem to. Most people I follow appear to be, shall we say, upwards of 40-ish (I'm nearly 50) and working in the media or related industries. Or they're news providers like Media Guardian, Telegraph etc..
I presume there was a time – about 100 years ago – when the telephone seemed confusingly modern. All those numbers and letters. The creepy face-like “dial”. The awkward unfamiliar rotary motion required to get it to work.
And then there was the kit itself – lurking in the corner of the room, and connecting you to God knows where via new-fangled electric wires.
I've been reassuring myself with these thoughts as I've been grappling with the sudden explosion of social networks, or in real English “different ways of talking to people”.
I consider myself a relatively early adopter. We've had a family website since 1999, and had a PVR in the house before Sky Plus became a verb. I've been blogging for years and know how to set up a Facebook group.
So why do I suddenly feel like I've lost the plot?
One tipping point came last week when I realised I had used three different ways of contacting the same person in one morning: once using Twitter to agree a meeting date; then via Facebook because I didn't have her email address, Finally by email, attaching directions to the meeting, copied to someone else who's going to be there too.
The more I think about this, the dafter it sounds.
In the halcyon days (about 2 months ago) I felt I was in control. Facebook worked well for me, and most people in my circles seemed to be on it. My iPhone and computer keep my contact book organised without me having to bother them. Being on LinkedIn was a bit of a pain, but I convinced myself that it's just a more workman-like version of Facebook and it let people say nice things about me.
Then three business contacts sent me an invitation to join Plaxo. Damn! That's doing the same as LinkedIn, isn't it? But the people on Plaxo are not on LinkedIn, so I've had to join that too.
And now that Twitter is everywhere I've had to learn how to tweet. Suddenly I need a bit of a lie down.
Anyone who's been on my business skills workshops will know that I've always had a clear distinction in my head between work and play. The family website is only for family and close friends. Facebook is a work tool for me, so no photos of the kids.
But this clever mental firewalling has been slowly hacked. What better way to demonstrate this than to tell you my mother-in-law 'friended' me on Facebook last month, and my dad has just started following me on Twitter. I think I'm flattered on both counts, but it's a bit like having your parents turn up 30 minutes too early to pick you up from the school disco. Efficient, loving even, but deeply unnerving.
And then there's the flawed phenomenon that is Twitter.
I tweet as myself, without using a silly name, and mainly when working. And I follow other twitterers (twits?) who work in the media or training. But everyone seems to be using Twitter in a different way.
One of my friends posts a lovely haiku every Monday. Another unapologetically tweets links to her business website all the time. Yet another comments on interesting media issues, but also provides a bit too much detail about what he and has family are up to. I'd quite like the former without the latter.
Simon Mayo and Mark Kermode have a joint Twitter account, which seems to me to miss the point entirely. I've worked out that it's nearly always Mayo who tweets. Except when it isn't. Very confusing.
And I hope Krishnan Guru-Murthy is taking the piss when he mixes fantastic journalistic messages with tweets like “Walking to the C4 news studio. See you on air in a moment.” (Earlier today he even tweeted during the opening titles to the news he was about to present; “music started”. That's how I know you must be taking the piss, Krishnan.)
I'm an optimist for whom the laptop battery is always half-full, so I suspect this will all settle down, just as our distant ancestors learnt how to dial a phone number without needing a stiff drink afterwards.
The early signs of help are already there. Different tools are starting to talk to each other. Thankfully I've managed to get Twitter to update my Facebook status using a simply piece of widgetery. (Although the format is different, so Facebook sometimes says things like “David Am in London today”, making me look deranged.)
Software like TweetDeck has its heart in the right place too. Now instead of one long confusing list of tweets you can arrange them into four or five long confusing columns. I'm sure I'll get the hang of it eventually.
Casting around for good advice on how not to drown under all this, I read media coach Alan Stevens's excellent weekly newsletter (where does he find the time?!). “Don't use more than one social network at a time”, he writes. If only, Alan. If only.
I don't have any profound new year message for you, but I was delighted to hear from a former trainee the other day. Her business recently produced a number of short health videos for Boots. I rather like them.
Survivors of my redundancy or 'sole trader' courses will know we have a bundle of fun with VAT. Remember all that info I gave you? Well it's all changing!
Following the Pre-Budget Report on 24 Nov 08 I've been updating and improving all the downloads and handouts which trainees can access through our secure website. The spreadsheets now cope with VAT much better, and I'm just redoing the relevant tip sheets. They'll be ready to roll by Monday.
The main change (for the moment) is the reduction in VAT, so that's only really going to affect people who are VAT registered. The change in the standard rate from 17.5% to 15% from Monday 1 Dec 08 will have been noticed by anyone who's not been living under a rock.
What you may not have noticed is the reduction in the flat rates for anyone who uses the Flat Rate Scheme for Small Businesses.
There is a note hidden away on the HMRC website at this link (PDF file, 384 KB – Look at Annex E for the new rates).
You'll see that Film, TV and Media production is down from 10.5% to 9.5% from 1 Dec 08 until VAT goes back up again, probably in Jan 2010.
Incidentally I have a theory about why Mr Darling reduced VAT rather than, say, reducing income tax. There's been a lot of moaning in the papers about a 2.5% reduction being tiny in the scheme of things. And if you consider the saving to you and me when we buy a flat screen TV it is indeed just a couple of quid.
However, reducing VAT allows retail businesses to either pass on the reduction to customers in full or keep price tickets nearer their old level, and increase their own cashflow. Cash is king in a recession, so this may be a better way to stop the wheels falling off some struggling businesses.
In other words, reducing VAT allows retail businesses to make business choices. The fact that it sounds like a benefit to customers is politically expedient because it makes the headlines, but it's not quite so relevant to the economy as a whole.
I was pleasantly surprised to discover one of my trainees had written about us in the Times last week. It just goes to show that you never know who's listening to what you have to say.
