John’s Christmas Blog 2024

I decided rather than doing an autumn or winter blog this year I would do a Christmas blog.

There is so much doom and gloom around, especially with the weather, the news of tax increases, the withdrawal of the winter fuel allowance. We need to look for cheerful things. It is Christmas, a time of the year where we rejoice because Christ came into the world to bring hope, joy, and salvation to those who seek Him and find Him.

I bring you good news of great joy, I am pleased to say Sophie, who joined us earlier in the year, has passed her final examinations and is now a qualified chartered accountant. She is our assistant audit manager and helps Jacob our audit manager as well as helping Gemma our charity manager in dealing with high level charity accounts.

Jacob and Gemma are becoming Associates in January, as we recognise the importance for the long-term continuity of the firm.

We seem to be dominated by women in our office! We have a new trainee in Kay who has come to us from a local firm. She is a close friend of Sam my secretary and again she joined earlier in the year. Also Catherine, who has come to us, to eventually help head up parts of our financial bureau providing bookkeeping help to clients as well as VAT returns.

We were sorry to lose Dominic, who has decided to change career direction and go into the commercial world of accounting, we do wish him well and are grateful for his help for the number of years he was with us. However, we are so blessed to have Sophie, Sam, Catherine and Kay to come along at the right time, So our staff numbers now are 16, plus myself, Colin and Vanessa as directors.

Antonina our tax manager reminds me to chase you all if you have not already submitted your tax return information. Tax Returns have to be submitted by the 31st January to avoid penalties and interest. If you have not already provided us with the information we really need it by 2nd January.

The recent budget has brought a lot of bad news in the form of tax increases, withdrawal of allowances and if you need any help or advice on this please do not hesitate to contact Antonina, Colin or myself. A particular area to be concerned with is inheritance tax, the news that pension pots are now to be included in inheritance tax calculations and the reduction in reliefs for the transfer of assets like farms and businesses down the generation.

It is still possible to do this by using the gift regime and passing assets across or down the line with the seven-year rule reducing inheritance tax and avoiding capital gains tax by utilizing the hold over relief provisions. If you would like help and advice in this particular very complex area do contact us.

This year instead of the staff doing a secret Santa we participated in the local ‘Delivering Joy’ at Dunelm. We all purchased gifts for those who are less fortunate than ourselves and do not receive any gifts. Everybody embraced this and we were proud to deliver 19 bags of gifts to the store.

Although no sunshine here, Rob our senior charity accountant is actually in South Africa at the moment on a family safari! We wish we could be with him and enjoy some warm weather. Linda my younger sister is currently in Australia visiting her son who plays cricket out there and she is going to have Christmas day on the beach! How fortunate.

Well, I wish you all a Happy Christmas and a peaceful New Year, good health and may you know the joy and blessing of this Christmas time.