The primary aim of government tax policy is to incentivise certain behaviours and discourage others. Here, Dragon Argent consider three policy announcements from last week’s Budget, that when reviewed together, have significant implications for startups and SMEs and some insight into the government’s strategy for business in the coming years.

On Wednesday, the Chancellor announced his Spring Budget for 2021. As ever, it was packed with changes to the financial landscape for UK individuals and businesses. Below are some high-level summaries of the key changes. Do get in touch for more detail and specific application to the circumstances you and your business face.

For many small businesses, the end of 2020 may well have been spent trying to navigate the latest rounds of COVID related tier changes, lockdowns and 11th hour interpretations of the last-minute Brexit agreement. As a business owner, I’m sure you are looking forward to a time when you can simply focus on running your business without the rolling waves of external factors that characterised 2020!

There is a certain amount of mythology that surrounds venture capital. For many startups, getting VC backing can feel like a key objective, so in this week’s newsletter, Dragon Argent attempt to remove some of the mystery around this form of funding and provide some practical steps for startups looking to VCs to support their growth in 2021.

For many SMEs, a constraint on growth is the difficulty for its key decision makers to prioritise their daily workload into those areas which have the most significant impact on growth. Owners often spread themselves too thinly across every aspect of the business, forgetting the key areas which create the greatest output. This can be resolved by the application of something known as the Pareto principle, which asserts that 80% of outputs can be derived from 20% of all causes or inputs.

The Chancellor Rishi Sunak, announced that the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme will remain open until 31 March 2021. Here, Dragon Argent assess what the latest announcements mean and how they might impact your business.

Last week the Chancellor announced amendments to the Job Support Scheme, which was itself replacing the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme and comes into effect on November 1st. These amendments have been designed to increase support for businesses and workers. The government say the Plan for Jobs will significantly increase protection of livelihoods and jobs across the UK through the winter.

The UK's post-Brexit transition period ends in January 2021. The deadline for agreeing a deal with the EU is December and with little progress apparent in negotiations, small business owners and SMEs could understandably be concerned. Here we provide some practical advice on what small businesses should be doing to prepare in three key areas.

The technology analysts CB Insights have curated some amazingly valuable information over the last 6 years looking at why startups fail. In this time, they have conducted over 350 investigations into startups that failed, identifying the most common reasons.

For obvious reasons, the way we work has changed over the course of 2020. What initially felt like a temporary, enforced adjustment has become a fundamental shift with businesses committing longer term to a more flexible approach to office-based working. There are specific tax relief implications that a material shift from office-based working may result in for employees or salaried directors. Here, Dragon Argent assess the tax relief benefits of working remotely.