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Enquiries suggest South West business owners “more concerned about their own mortality”
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Our Financial Planning team believes the Covid-19 pandemic has forced more business owners to face up to their own mortality and the potential financial impact on their business. We are seeing an unprecedented increase in enquiries from business owners seeking advice on how to protect their businesses in the event of their death or a serious illness.
Key Person Insurance
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Do you have employees your business simply couldn’t do without? This could be the business owner or director, key salesperson or any employee with specialist skills or expertise. If one should die unexpectedly, as well as the emotional trauma of dealing with such a devastating event you have to consider the potential impact on the business and possibly a significant portion of its income, perhaps for several months.
Capital Gains Tax – fundamental change on the way?
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Given the current situation we find ourselves in, with the huge hike in public borrowing to fund the various Coronavirus support measures, it is just a matter of time before we start to see how the tax payer will be asked to fund these measures. To many people Capital Gains Tax (“CGT”) is seen as an easy target – typically less than 300,000 people a year pay any CGT at all.
The effect of a local lockdown on the leisure and tourism sector
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Have you considered the risk of a local lockdown on your leisure or tourism business?
With non-essential shops re-opening and a drop in the number of new cases, there is currently an optimistic view that the worst of Covid-19 has now passed. Policy now seems to be to move towards a limited, socially-distanced re-opening of tourism and leisure businesses at the earliest opportunity.
Should South West tourism businesses prepare for a late season?
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With so much uncertainty around when we might be able to start to enjoy holidays once again, the tourism sector is facing a difficult summer. We do not yet know whether or not it will be possible to have a break away in the traditional months of July or August. Some tourism experts are predicting a later holiday season in 2020. Could we see more visitors coming down to the South West over the October half term, for example, or booking a stay for Christmas and New Year?
Helping our clients and contacts during these challenging times
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It is now two months since I issued my last statement in respect of how we, at Thomas Westcott, are adapting our working practices during COVID-19. Those two months seem to have flown by. There has been so much Government guidance for businesses, all of which needed to be reviewed and put into practice, while also prioritising the health and safety of our teams and making sure everyone we work with is protected to the maximum. At Thomas Westcott we have taken every piece of information published by the Government, reviewed and summarised it for our own business needs, and also for our clients.
We continue to be available for all our clients and contacts. As ever, we are very much ‘By Your Side. On Your Side’, just a little more remotely than normal. Our clients have benefited from our regular COVID-19 technical updates, weekly topical webinars and general assistance with grant applications, advice on furlough, assistance with loan applications. In fact, we have successfully completed more than 400 Job Retention Scheme applications for our clients. We remain committed to ensuring the continuity of our services to you and doing all we can to be there for you.
Behind the scenes we are, of course, working on plans to open our offices and ensure everything is in place from a health & safety viewpoint to protect both you and our teams. In the meantime, we are focusing on making everything as smooth as possible. Please contact us using your normal office contact number and your call will be answered. In addition, all of our partners’ mobile numbers are on our website. If you wish to drop off your records, please call us and this can be arranged.
To help you during this time, we will be posting Coronavirus related content on our Insights page, which includes useful information to help individuals and all types of businesses get advice as to what actions to take as this situation develops. This will be updated daily but in addition, please do call us for assistance. We are here to help and to support you through these challenging times.
Shona Godefroy, Managing Partner
Covid-19: Farming Business in South West
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The outbreak of the Coronavirus is starting to impact on farms and the situation is changing daily. When the outbreak first occurred many thought that farming would be relatively safe, with milk contracts having performed well in recent times and indeed some buyers putting prices up.
What this time should teach us all is that businesses of all kinds are reliant on all parts of the supply chain; from primary producer through to the end consumer to work well. Major changes at any point will impact on those both up and down the food chain.
In a crisis there is usually a ‘knee jerk’ reaction before markets settle at a less extreme position. However, the big problem for farming is that the commodities produced are often perishable and part of a long production chain that cannot be sped up or slowed down quickly, meaning that produce once it is ready needs to be sold.
Looking at individual commodities;
Milk is a huge part of the South West farming landscape. A number of local buyers have lost their markets at this time as a result of the service sector, café and restaurant trades all being forced to close. Whilst it could be assumed that the milk would be consumed elsewhere we are seeing a significant shortfall in demand. With milk production normally beginning to run up to peak production there is a real issue for many farms. Some dairies have decreased their milk prices and some have also delayed payment taking payment terms to 45 days to try and cope with this to avoid unsold milk.
- Lamb deadweight prices have fallen dramatically from a high on 21st March of 551ppkg to 456.2ppkg on 4th April. To keep it in perspective though the price at the same time last year was 456.2ppkg.
- Whilst it is worrying to see these sorts of falls it does need to be kept in perspective. Keeping the lamb on farm is not an option for most with grass and forage being managed with a normal year usually expected. Keeping animals longer will not help the quality of the animal nor will it help forage production for next winter.
- Beef will be affected by the virus as much as other commodities but it may taken longer for the impact to be seen. Again with people unable to eat out the issue with may well be the cuts of beef that are being chosen. Most people tend to treat themselves when eating out but not so when eating at home. As a result we could see significant price changes, although so far the market has been following reasonable prices in the last few months.
- Cereals will be affected, in particular by the brewing industry’s demand for malting barley. Consumption is likely to be much less as people stay at home. There was panic buying of bread in the early stages of the virus giving a spike in demand but as matters settle the market will come back into equilibrium. For many it is not a time of year when much grain is physically sold off farm and the impact will be more likely felt on next year’s crop and will depend on world stocks as the new harvest season starts.
Given difficult markets, what actions should individual farmers be taking to minimise the disruption to their farms?
- Quantify the impact – revise forecasts and budgets to consider what the loss of 1 milk cheque or £40 per lamb would have on the cash position of the farm.
- Revise purchases of livestock – is it worth the risk to buy now when milk prices are very volatile?
- Check through milk contracts to understand what the legal position is.
- Check insurance- is there potential for a claim for unsold milk?
- Capital projects will have been put on hold for the time being – perhaps they should be delayed into another year?
- If there is likely to be a cash problem talk to your lenders. Remember individual bank managers are under pressure at present too so they will need time to assess your position.
- Capital projects will have been approved by lenders before the virus. It is worth revisiting these to ensure they will still be affordable.
- Talk to your families and your advisors. These are all issues that are being faced every day and speaking to someone with the experience of similar situations can be a big help.
- There is well publicised Government help and we have looked to collate this in our summary factsheets and we can help you access any reliefs you are entitled to.
We are here to support you during these unprecedented times. If you have any queries or need any advice, please do not hesitate to contact me or your local Thomas Westcott representative
Property Landlords – a tax-free opportunity to improve your cash flow in 2020
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If you are a buy-to-let landlord, you may experience rental income problems this year.
If your tenant is unable to pay their rent you should speak to your tenant and follow the emergency government guideline procedures on tenancies.
The pitfalls of accessing your pension earlier than planned
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As the Coronavirus continues its disruption across the world, you may be tempted to consider looking at your retirement funds to ease your short-term cash flow woes.
HMRC Extends Soft-Landing for ‘Digital Links’
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In light of the ongoing pressures of COVID-19, HMRC are today announcing the extension of the Making Tax Digital (‘MTD’) for VAT soft-landing period for integrating ‘digital links’.
