Government support for SMEs - Stephenson Smart

26th May, 2022, Melanie Harriss

There are four ways you can get financial support for SMEs, to help you invest and grow.

Claim up to £5,000 with the Employment Allowance

Employment Allowance is a tax relief which allows eligible businesses to reduce their National Insurance contributions (NICs) bills each year. You can claim this if you are a business, and your employer Class 1 National Insurance liabilities were less than £100,000 in the previous tax year.

Get a discount of up to £5,000 on software, with Help to Grow

Help to Grow: Digital is a UK-wide government-backed scheme that aims to help you choose, buy and adopt digital technologies that will help you grow your business.

Eligible businesses can receive a 50% discount on buying new software worth up to £5,000 per SME, alongside free impartial advice and guidance about what digital technology is best suited to boost your business performance.

The Help to Grow: Management scheme provides small businesses with access to world-class business expertise on everything from leadership and financial management to marketing and digital adoption. This is delivered through leading UK business schools, alongside one-on-one support from a business mentor – and is 90% funded by the government.

By the end of the programme, you will develop a business growth plan to help you lead and grow your business.

To be eligible, you must be a UK-based SME, actively trading for at least one year and have a total of between 5 and 249 employees.

Get up to half off your business rates

From April this year, small retail, hospitality, and leisure businesses can benefit from 50% off their business rates bills.

The business rates multiplier has also been frozen for another year. This is used to calculate how much business rates should be paid; it usually rises with inflation each year.

The business rates multipliers for 2022 to 2023 are 49.9 pence for the small business multiplier and 51.2 pence for the standard multiplier.

From April 2022 there will be no business rates due on a range of green technology, including solar panels and batteries, whilst eligible heat networks will also receive 100% relief.

Invest in your business with Super-deduction and Annual Investment Allowance

To spur business investment, the super-deduction allows companies to cut their tax bill by 25 pence for every £1 they invest in any qualifying machinery and equipment. This can include the purchase of computers, most commercial vehicles and office furniture.

The temporary £1 million limit for the Annual Investment Allowance has also been extended to the end of March 2023. This had been due to revert to £200,000 at the start of 2022. The Annual Investment Allowance allows businesses to spend up to £1 million on qualifying business equipment and deduct in-year its full cost before they calculate their taxable profits.

Both tax breaks remain available for firms to take advantage of until the end of March 2023, by incurring qualifying expenditure before then.

If you need help in accessing any of these schemes to help support your business, please get in touch.