Since 2017, there is no tax to pay on trading income or earnings from land and property as long as the income from each source does not exceed £1,000.

Trading allowance

The trading allowance is a tax exemption of up to £1,000 a year for individuals with trading income from:

• self-employment.
• casual services, for example, babysitting or gardening.
• hiring personal equipment, for example, power tools.

This allowance does not apply to trading income from a partnership.

Property allowance

The property allowance is a tax exemption of up to £1,000 a year for individuals with income from land or property.

If you own a property jointly with others, you are each eligible for the £1,000 allowance against your share of the gross rental income.

If you have two businesses and claim the property allowance in one business, you may not claim actual expenses in respect of the other business.

You cannot use this allowance on income from letting a room in your own home under the Rent a Room Scheme.

There are various provisions to make sure that these allowances are not exploited. If you want to take advantage of either or both these allowances read the fine print on the gov.uk website.

If you are locked into an IVA and are concerned that recent increases in the cost of living are creating severe financial pressures, you can ask your IVA supervisor to review your income and expenses to see if you are eligible for a reduction in payments or a payment break.

You will be required to provide evidence of your income and expenditure to support a change to your contributions. This could include providing payslips, statement of benefits or utility bills.

Any amendments to your contributions into your IVAs would need to be agreed with your creditors.

Your supervisor has been provided with the latest guidance on adjustments to payments, via the IVA Standing Committee, and they will also be aware of alternative solutions to help you resolve your debt issues and can help you find further information where appropriate.

More than a million small businesses are now eligible for discounted software through a flagship government scheme after a change to the rules.

The Help to Grow: Digital Scheme, which cuts the price of leading software to boost productivity and growth in the UK’s smaller firms, is now available to businesses with just one employee.

With Customer Relationship Management software proven to boost firms’ productivity by 18% on average, the initiative offers businesses discounts worth up to £5,000 on approved software.

Previously, only businesses with more than five employees were eligible for the scheme. From July 25, the number of eligible businesses rose by 760,000 making the scheme available to 1.24 million small companies.

eCommerce software is also now available through the scheme to help businesses ramp up sales of products and services online. This includes helping them to manage their inventory, take payments and gather data and insights on customers’ needs. Businesses which adopt eCommerce software see on average a 7.5% increase in employee sales over three years.

This means businesses can now access a £5,000 discount on 30 software solutions from 14 leading technology suppliers for eCommerce, Digital Accounting and CRM software.

Additionally, the government has announced that Help to Grow: Digital will support one-to-one advice for SMEs on the best ways to adopt digital technology. The government has launched applications for advice platforms to partner with the scheme, and the advice service will go live later this year.

Business Minister Lord Callanan said: “Boosting productivity isn’t some abstract concept to be sniffed at – for individual SMEs it means bigger sales and breaking into new markets. It can add £100 billion to the British economy overall, creating jobs and opportunity across the country.

“Adopting the latest technology is proven to help businesses make the most of their potential, and by making more than one million firms eligible for the scheme, we’re helping to level up the UK economy and bolster the ability of our businesses to compete with the best worldwide.”

The Help to Grow: Digital sits alongside the Help to Grow: Management scheme as the government’s flagship programme to help small and medium-sized businesses to scale-up and grow. Help to Grow: Management offers business leaders 50 hours of leadership and management training across 12 weeks, with government covering 90% of the costs involved.

The schemes help businesses to boost their productivity and grow, which can lead to more high-skill, high-wage jobs. This is part of the government’s commitment to grow the economy to address the cost of living and level up opportunity across the UK, alongside standing behind businesses by cutting fuel duty and raising the Employment Allowance.