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Setting up a business involves complying with a range of legal requirements. Find out which ones apply to you and your new enterprise.
What particular regulations do specific types of business (such as a hotel, or a printer, or a taxi firm) need to follow? We explain some of the key legal issues to consider for 200 types of business.
While poor governance can bring serious legal consequences, the law can also protect business owners and managers and help to prevent conflict.
Whether you want to raise finance, join forces with someone else, buy or sell a business, it pays to be aware of the legal implications.
From pay, hours and time off to discipline, grievance and hiring and firing employees, find out about your legal responsibilities as an employer.
Marketing matters. Marketing drives sales for businesses of all sizes by ensuring that customers think of their brand when they want to buy.
Commercial disputes can prove time-consuming, stressful and expensive, but having robust legal agreements can help to prevent them from occurring.
Whether your business owns or rents premises, your legal liabilities can be substantial. Commercial property law is complex, but you can avoid common pitfalls.
With information and sound advice, living up to your legal responsibilities to safeguard your employees, customers and visitors need not be difficult or costly.
As information technology continues to evolve, legislation must also change. It affects everything from data protection and online selling to internet policies for employees.
Intellectual property (IP) isn't solely relevant to larger businesses or those involved in developing innovative new products: all products have IP.
Knowing how and when you plan to sell or relinquish control of your business can help you to make better decisions and achieve the best possible outcome.
From bereavement, wills, inheritance, separation and divorce to selling a house, personal injury and traffic offences, learn more about your personal legal rights.
Inheritance tax (IHT) is chargeable on your estate if it exceeds the IHT nil rate threshold (currently £325,000). Effective inheritance tax planning can substantially reduce the amount of tax that will be payable on your estate. If your estate is likely to exceed the IHT nil rate band - at £325,000, less than the value of many properties - it's worth investigating how family trusts and other IHT planning options could benefit you.
Inheritance tax is charged at 40% on the value of your estate in excess of the nil rate band (£325,000).
If your estate is valued at less than the nil rate band, IHT is not payable. Equally IHT is not payable on any inheritance you leave to your spouse. In addition, if your own estate does not use up the full nil rate band, your spouse's tax free allowance will be proportionately increased.
You can reduce IHT by giving away up to £3,000 a year and small gifts to other people of up to £250 each. Regular gifts out of income (but not capital) also reduce IHT, as do gifts to help maintain dependant relatives.
Larger gifts can avoid IHT provided you survive at least seven years after making the gift. To qualify, you must not continue to benefit from the assets you have given away.
Other IHT reliefs include reduced IHT on some business assets. Death benefits from most pension schemes are exempt from IHT.
Family trusts can grant extra flexibility in your IHT planning. For example, a family trust can be used to provide a lifetime income for your spouse but with the assets passing to your children, or to help protect ownership of a family business.
The tax treatment of family trusts is complex and depends on the type of family trust being used. A 'bare trust' set up by a grandparent allows income and capital gains to be taxed as the child's - often meaning that no tax is payable once the child's tax allowances are taken into account. By contrast, IHT may be payable on gifts into a family trust if the amount given exceeds the nil rate band, while income and capital gains made by the trust are also taxable.
IHT planning, like other kinds of tax planning, should start with thinking about what you want, rather than simply minimising IHT. While gifts and family trusts can reduce the value of your estate (and so IHT), it's important to retain enough for your own financial needs.
The best IHT planning tends to be done early and takes a balanced approach to risk. A long-term view of IHT planning might include skipping a generation, for example, setting up a family trust for future grandchildren.
Other practical issues include choosing the right trustees for any proposed family trusts, and organising your financial affairs so that your estate has ready access to the money needed to pay any IHT liability.