The Association of Heating & Plumbing Contractors (APHC) and HM Revenue & Customs are pleased to announce the launch of a new partnership to support small plumbing and heating businesses in understanding their tax affairs.
Esther Harries, APHC commercial manager, commented:
“Many APHC members are sole traders or small to medium enterprises whose workloads are often very hectic. One of the benefits that APHC provides members with is business support that can really help to maintain and develop smaller businesses, which may well be short on time. APHC already provides a variety of guidance documents including factsheets, health and safety guides and commissioning templates.
“We felt that advice on taxation matters may also be of benefit and, by partnering with HMRC, we are ideally placed to be able to provide insight and guidance to our members, and also to the wider plumbing industry.“
A recent example of monetary business guidance offered by APHC to their members includes an update on the Employment Allowance. The Allowance, brought in on 6 April this year, allows employers to claim up to £2000 each tax year by reducing their National Insurance Contributions and is available to businesses and charities.
When the bill was brought in, it was thought that the Employment Allowance would be of greater benefit to small businesses, as it would reduce their National Insurance Contributions bill the most. Yet some businesses have yet to do this and are losing out, Ms Harries explained.
She continued with:
“Through this new partnership initiative with HMRC, we hope to make tax related issues easier to understand and to help plumbing and heating businesses to be more aware of the guidance that HMRC can offer to them,”
HMRC provide business guidance tools such as e-learning packages, webinars, a YouTube channel, social media updates and factsheets that all businesses can access. APHC will be pointing plumbing and heating businesses to relevant areas to help to keep them updated as well as releasing advice on taxation practices.
Mark Adams, national partnering team at HM Revenue & Customs, said:
“We look forward to working with APHC to help clarify to businesses their obligations to HMRC. Tax can be a complicated area for people to understand especially for those who have recently started a business or perhaps find themselves taking on employees for the first time.
“We are here to help and through our partner APHC we’ll be able to directly reach out to assist plumbing and heating businesses in fully understanding their responsibilities but also in helping to help make taxation as simple and straightforward as possible, giving smaller businesses greater assurance and certainty.”