So it was a fairly unremarkable pre-election budget. One of the nuggets for small business owners such as myself is the intention of the government to remove red tape. They will remove the obligation on small businesses to pay tax credits direct to their workforce (which was actually seen as a positive move when it was introduced). Inland Revenue and Customs are to consult on simplifying tax administration, including a single tax account.

We all know how difficult handling three accounts is, don’t we? Well, it’s not. We currently have one for VAT, one for PAYE and one for National Insurance (NI). Our accounting software used not to distinguish between PAYE and NI, which meant we had to add up to work out what went in which Inland Revenue account. Today I just reconfigured the settings so they’re separated. All nice and straightforward now.

What the government needs to do is persuade people to use professional accounting software. I’m dismayed at the amount of time and effort many companies spend doing everything manually, or contracting out payroll, when for a few hundred pounds they could do it all themselves.