With exquisite timing given my Monday's post, the Chancellor's Autumn Statement included further changes to the Enterprise Investment Scheme, the most interesting of which is the creation of the Seed Enterprise Investment Scheme.  

From the start of the new tax year, qualifying investments into start-up businesses will attract a fairly extraordinary 50% income tax relief - but even more extraordinary, if the funds ...

We've known for some time that in future employers will be obliged to provide a contributory pension scheme for employees, and that rather than opting in, employees will only be able to opt out.

We've known that the timetable for implementation of this scheme depends on the number of employees on the payroll, that very large employers are caught from next October, large ones from 2013, medium-sized from 2014, and all employers by 2016.

We've just left a meeting at the offices of lawyers acting on behalf of a mutual client for whom we've both been undertaking Due Diligence on a proposed acquisition.  The meeting was with the vendors and their legal team, and lasted precisely 5 minutes - long enough to advise them we were so far apart as regards price and pre-conditions that the four-month acquisition process was now over, the deal would not go ahead, and that we'd be looking ...

Doubtless anyone reading this will have heard about this Act, some will have read commentaries on it, others may have gone on courses or spoken to their lawyers or accountants about it. 

For those that haven't gone beyond stage 1, perhaps these comments might whet your appetite.

I first saw real-life reference to the Act some weeks back when looking at a questionnaire issued to vendors of a small business by solicitors acting for ...

In these difficult times all SME's are rightly concentrating on cashflow.  Shorten debtor days as far as possible, lengthen creditor days if you can, keep tight control over expenditure.

But lengthening creditor days by one company means lengthening the debtor days of another.  All businesses are fighting for survival, but is this really cricket?

Some time back I was reviewing the Late Payment of Commercial Debts (Interest) Act 1998 ...