Tag Archives: job

Bonus rates fall again for employee share schemes

The Treasury has announced another reduction in the bonus rates for the Save As You Earn (SAYE) sharesave scheme.

The scheme was set up to encourage more employees to own shares in their companies. Employers pay a proportion of an employee’s monthly earnings into a bank or building society for a period of 3, 5 or 7 years.

At the end of the period, the employee can take their savings and a tax-free bonus or they can use the cash to buy shares in their employers’ company, usually at a discount of 20 per cent below the share price as it stood at the start of the period. The Treasury said that the latest move was intended to keep the rates in line with other interest rates.

For three-year contracts, the new bonus rate is 0.6 times instead of 1.5 times the value of an employee’s monthly payments. This represents a cut in the interest from 2.67 per cent to 1.08 per cent.

For five-year contracts, the new bonus rate is 2.6 times instead of 4.8 times the value of an employee’s monthly payments, reducing the interest from 3.04 per cent to 1.67 per cent.

In the case of seven-year contracts, the new bonus rate is 5.6 times rather than 9.3 times the value of an employee’s monthly payments, with the rate of interest coming down from 3.20 per cent to 1.98 per cent.

To be always updated on all news about rates & tax please see the westbury’s website!

Are you looking for a job?

You are not the only one. Everyday we see reports on the crisis, the recession and the uncertain times for business and employment. Today BT shed 10,000 jobs as profits slide; British Telecom are of course one of the main service providers of UK broadband, phone lines, mobile products, digital TV, web hosting, online security and networked IT services for the home. These measures are symptomatic of the present economic climate and are unfortunately being implemented on a large scale, as reported daily.

This meltdown is forcing the Government to take more than just a position; they must take action. Mervyn King is determined to kick-start the economy, focussing on inflation he said that he will cut rates again and again. Gordon Brown said last week that he wanted to cut business taxes. The Opposition has said that this would help 350,000 people back into work, as well as reducing the tax burden on business by £2.6 billion and saving as much in unemployment benefits. Could it be a good solution or an unfunded tax cut? To find out more about this topic please follow this link to the article on westbury.co.uk!

The latest news bites

Good afternoon and welcome back. It never rains but it pours:

1. “Recession will hit UK hardest” – says the Guardian.co.uk -, economists predict slowdown will be sharper in Britain than in any other major European countries and Britain will suffer a deeper recession than any other mature EU economy. Consequence? The European Commission’s latest half-yearly forecast predicts UK unemployment will rise from 5.3% in 2007 to 7.1% in 2009 — which would bring the number out of work to about 2.25 million.”

2. “HBOS deal to save Lloyds £1.5bn,” writes BBCNews.com. “Lloyds has said that its acquisition of HBOS would save it at least £1.5bn a year, raising fears of heavy job losses from the merger. Both banks have also unveiled further write-downs on assets ravaged by the credit crunch, with HBOS hardest hit. The banks also detailed plans to raise up to £17bn as part of the government’s bank bail-out plan. Unions said that the banks should think about the human cost of the takeover and avoid compulsory redundancies.”

3. “Ryanair profits fall sharply,” reveals today’s Financial Times. “[Its] profits fell heavily in the first six months under pressure from the doubling of fuel costs, and the group forecast that it would be in loss during the second half of the year… The group, Europe’s largest low cost carrier, had only “limited visibility” of forward bookings, but from October to March would fall by between 15 and 20 per cent leading to losses in the third and fourth quarters.”

4. WorldNews explains, “Gordon Brown hinted at another emergency global interest cut yesterday amid warnings that UK unemployment is set to soar to almost 3million. The Prime Minister promised ‘co-ordinated action’ across the world as pressure grew on the Bank of England to slash the cost of borrowing by as much as 1 per cent this week.” We shall see.

A woeful winter…

Hello and welcome back. The ups & downs of the markets of last week have had several more consequences, all adding to the long list of repercussions of the ongoing crisis.
Only one month ago one of the biggest banks of Canary Wharf closed and now The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development announced that unemployment is increasing everyday – no sector excluded. Official figures show a 164,000 quarterly rise in unemployment.
It will be a woeful winter for the markets, for employers and for the employees and moreover for those looking for a new job. Please see our parent accountancy website Westbury for the full report.

What is londonpresence.com?

Londonpresence.com is not a stand alone organisation: it operates under the larger umbrella of the Made Simple Group. They run multiple separate, yet interlinked, services from the N1 area of London.

London Presence can be basically divided into two fields: the postal department (forwarding, scanning & emailing, taking delivery of items for collection) and one with telephone answering service (taking calls from your clients and passing the messages on to you).

Londonpresence.com has got more than 3,000 of customers from more than 60 countries. There is a multicultural flavour to the office, with six different nationalities that represent in microcosm some of the wonderful diversity to be found in London.

Londonpresence.com is the best solution to having the prestige of a multinational corporation, without the cost: a virtual office is a cheap chance for a global future.