small businesses
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Features
Survival tips for small business owners
We recently sold a business for husband and wife proprietors of a property lettings and management agency who told me that they had not had a single day off for thirty-two years! They took a mobile phone wherever they went and regardless of whether they were away on holiday, eating Christmas lunch or fast asleep in the small hours of the morning, they would dutifully answer every call and deal with whatever emergency there was immediately. One couple didn’t have a day off in 32 years. They sold up and had a holiday. Four weeks later, the husband died of a heart attack. They finally sold their business, took their first proper holiday for thirty-two years and enjoyed another four weeks of their retirement before the husband died from a massive heart attack. I feel sad about this story whenever I tell it. Take a break! So many of the business owners that I deal with believe that they have to be available 24/7. I believe that they are wrong about this and that the benefit of any extra money that they earn from working these extra hours will be far outweighed by the damage that they do to their…
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Movers & Shakers
RLA welcomes new Director
THE Residential Landlords Association (RLA) is delighted to welcome on board a new Director, former Director General of the Council of Mortgage Lenders (CML) Paul Smee.
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Guest Blogs
Taxing times
Yet another article has appeared in the national press about the withdrawal of tax breaks for people who sell their business. It is the fifth article in four months and many business owners are starting to get very worried. At the moment if you sell your business for, say, £1 million, then you will usually be able to claim entrepreneurs’ relief which means that you will pay tax of just £100,000 (10 per cent) on the proceeds of the sale. The usual capital gains tax rate is 28 per cent so if entrepreneurs’ relief were to be abolished, your tax bill on a £1 million sale would increase by £180,000 to £280,000. This could have a massive impact upon people’s behaviour. THE CONSEQUENCES The first consequence could be that people would be discouraged from starting new businesses. The great majority of people who start their own business hope to sell it one day and if the net proceeds of the sale were to be reduced, they may well decide that the risk of leaving a safe job to become an entrepreneur was simply not worth it. Agents hoping to sell their business and retire may not raise enough money to…
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