Newsletter 2014 Issue 01

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New legislation

The Small Companies (Micro-Entities' Accounts) Regulations 2013

A micro-entity is a company that meets at least two of the following conditions:

turnover must be not more than £632,000
the balance sheet total must be not more than £316,000
the average number of employees must be not more than 10

A micro-entity may register micro-entity accounts to Companies House for any financial year ending on or after 30 September 2013 in which it meets these criteria. Such accounts are simplified financial statements, as laid down in these regulations. They are an alternative to the long standing “modified accounts” that may already be published by companies meeting the small company definition.The government has introduced this new alternative set of regulations as part of its “Red Tape Challenge”.

Proposed legislation

Company names

The government has announced that new regulations are to be introduced to reduce the number of sensitive words and the number of “same as” words in relation to company names. The new regulations have not yet been published but are expected to come into effect on 1 April 2014.

The regulations on names and trading disclosures will be merged so that the legal requirements can be found in one set of regulations.

New register of beneficial owners

New legislation is to be brought in in 2015 requiring details of anyone with a beneficial interest in 25% or more of a company's shares or voting rights to disclose such interest and for Companies House to keep a register of them. This will defeat the point of having nominee shareholdings for such beneficial interests.

The Department for Business published details of its intention to create a registry in the “Transparency and Trust” discussion paper in July.

Community Interest Companies (CICs)

There are now approximately 8,900 CICs registered, and the following proposed changes may well result in an increase in that number.

New tax concessions called “Social Investment Tax Relief”, will come into effect in April 2014 giving some tax relief on investments is social enterprises.

Also legislation will come into effect on 1 October 2014. This will remove the cap on the maximum dividend per share and the maximum interest rate for performance related interest will be increased from 10% to 20%. The maximum aggregate dividend cap will be retained at 35%.

Other news

Phishing emails

Companies House has issued a warning about bogus phishing emails purporting to come from them. There are different types, but examples are notification of a complaint against the company, advice to update the company information and notification that a document has been lodged at Companies House. In each case the email advises the recipient to open an attachment or to follow a link. Doing so provides a means by which malware (virus or other rogue software) can be surreptitiously installed on your computing device, the subsequent effects of which can be wide ranging and damaging depending on the intent of the criminals behind the bogus email.

Companies House website moves to .gov.uk

From July 2014 the Companies House website will be moved to a new address within the overall .gov.uk website, and the existing web address will cease to function. This part of an overall resiting of government websites in one place.