VAT is, one of the most common taxes and is a tax on consumer expenditure. It is also collected on business transactions, imports and acquisitions and unless you are VAT registered yourself you cannot avoid paying this additional tax. There are three different levels of VAT, but the most commonly charged is 17.5%. The other two are zero rated and lower rated (5%).

With some notable exceptions, VAT is payable if the goods and services are:

* supplies made in the United Kingdom (UK) or the Isle of Man
* by a taxable person
* in the course of a business
* are not specifically exempted or zero-rated.

To become VAT registered, your firm’s turnover must exceed £61,000 a year, although this figure is likely to increase each year.
These increases have been aimed at helping new businesses that cannot deal with the burden of filling out continual VAT forms. However, you can often save significant amounts of money if you register for it as you can claim back the VAT you pay on any goods and services you purchase. Therefore a number of businesses voluntarily put their name forward even if they are under the threshold.

The following items are rated at the lower rate of VAT:

• domestic fuel or power
• installation of energy saving materials
• grant funded installation of heating equipment or security goods or connection of gas supply
• renovation and alteration of dwellings
• residential conversions
• women’s sanitary products
• children’s car seats.

The following items are zero rated:

• food
• books, newspapers and magazines
• children’s clothes
• special exempt items - for example equipment for disabled people

You can find a complete list of zero rated goods here

Well, this is it. This is where I put my money where my mouth is and say - OKAY, come on down and find out whether I do actually know what I’m talking about or not.

What am I talking about, well the seminar I’m running on 2nd November in Dorchester that’s what.

You can find out more by visiting the mini site I have created for this seminar and the master classes and consultancy work that will come out of it. The mini site address is: www.growabetterbusiness.co.uk and you can even book online, if you fancy joining me for the evening in the beautiful county of Dorset.

This seminar is designed as the first one, to introduce people to the concept of using the Internet more effectively for business. I’ll be doing a grand tour of marketing, advertising, web design, auto-responders, ebay, google, online payment systems and much, much more.

I’ll let you know how it goes when I’ve done it ….!

Linda

Those of you who have ever watched Dragon’s Den on BBC2, will know that there is more to inventing than meets the eye, in particular the Dragon’s are concerned about protecting any investment that they make from copy cat manufacturers who will make a million after all the hard work has been done.
One of their pet peeves, are those people who enter the Dragon’s Den with seemingly fantastic ideas that are going to make billions for everyone who then turn out to have little or no evidence of being aware that they may need to have a patent in place.

Patents are one a whole family of products that come under the loose title of Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) management and they cover inventions that people have. A patent protects new inventions and covers how things work, what they do, how they do it, what they are made of and how they are made. It gives the patent owner the right to prevent others from making, using, importing or selling the invention without permission. If you have invented something and would like to apply for a patent, then it must meet the following criteria before an application can be made:-

- be new
- have an inventive step that is not obvious to someone with knowledge and experience in the subject
- be capable of being made or used in some kind of industry

It must not be:

- a scientific or mathematical discovery, theory or method
- a literary, dramatic, musical or artistic work
- a way of performing a mental act, playing a game or doing business
- the presentation of information, or some computer programs
- an animal or plant variety
- a method of medical treatment or diagnosis
- against public policy or morality.

You can get more information on Patents from the following websites:

http://www.ipo.gov.uk/patent.htm
http://www.freepatentsonline.com/
http://nip.blogs.com/patent/2004/09/guide_to_downlo.html - US information
http://patentpending.blogs.com/

I don’t know how many of you are aware of the many ways in which you can market a website, but if you are using a blog as I am then one of the more popular is a service called Technorati which aims to index all of the blogs world-wide, a sort of Google for blogs really. It is very simple to use, all you have to do is create a username and password, access your account and then claim your blog by including a small amount of code in a posting - rather like this bit here:
Technorati Profile

So what not head on over to Technorati now and see whether you can your blog as well!

TTFN

Linda

If I’m correct, you will either already have an online business or be in the process of setting one up. So why not earn some extra income by becoming one of my affiliates and earn yourself a hefty 50% of the cover price of the ebook?

If you are interested, you simply need to create an account at Clickbank.com and use the following link on your website, substituting your user ID in the appropriate place, and then simply promote it and watch the cash roll in:

http://YOUR USER ID GOES HERE.lindaph.hop.clickbank.net/

Once you have set up this first affiliate link, you can then choose from many others at ClickBank and increase your income without having to create anything yourself.

Bye for now

Linda