Acting for OMBs Conference

Our one day Acting for OMBs Conference has been specifically designed for partners and those at management level who advise owner managed businesses. It is a specialist conference looking at a wide range of practical issues which will enable those attending to provide the best possible advice to their clients.


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Full conference agenda


Pat Nown, Mercia Group Ltd

Pat will review a round-up of topical tax developments, this will be flexed depending on new developments but is currently set to include:

  • How the CT rate increase impacts your clients
    • Including associate company refresher
    • Planning points
  • Profit extraction in 2023 - a different approach
  • Key points for the OMB sector from Finance Act 2023 and Spring Budget

Peter Rayney, Peter Rayney Tax Consulting

Peter will examine the various exit methods for owner managers based on recent consultancy projects, covering:

  • Company purchase of own shares
  • Selling the company to a trade-buyer
  • Winding up the company after selling its trade and assets
  • CGT exempt sale of shares to an employee share ownership trust

Louise Dunford, LD Consultancy Ltd

The course content will be topical and will include cases or legislative reform occurring prior to the course date, relevant to managing the OMB workforce. Topics covered are likely to include:

  • Employment status and IR35 development
  • The future of flexible working, making it work for you
  • Restructuring the workforce – a look at redundancy, hire and fire and related issues
  • Sickness and disability – recent cases, including developments on menopause and long Covid
  • Unlawful discrimination – recent litigation
  • Grievances – what are they and how should they be handled?
  • Developments in vicarious liability – when will employer be responsible for actions of the employee?
  • What to expect in 2023 and beyond, Brexit impact on employment law, reform of restrictive covenants and expansion of voluntary reporting framework

Peter Herbert, Insight Training

It’s an exciting time for financial reporting with significant changes on the horizon affecting the production and filing of OMB accounts.

Topics covered will include:

  • FRED 82 – what it entails and what it means for OMBs
  • The 2nd Economic Crime Act – the impact on accounts filing
  • Preparing OMB accounts in difficult times
  • Common problem areas and how to resolve them

James Hurst, Mercia Group Ltd

The cost of getting VAT wrong can be high – with the risk of being hit by penalties on top of an unexpected VAT bill. In this session we will consider 10 of the most common areas where businesses (maybe OMBs?) make errors in their VAT returns. In our experience VAT errors are often made on transactions that fall outside the core business activity, where the VAT treatment is less familiar. This session will cover topics such as VAT recovery on expenses, one-off property transactions, and the evidence for imports and exports. It will include pointers to help avoid the common VAT pitfalls.


Janet Brown, Moore Thompson

This session will cover:

  • Background to grants
  • What grants are available for OMB businesses?
  • Benefits
  • How to apply for the grants and tips
  • Potential barriers to funding & eligibility
  • Questions

Conference speakers


Pat Nown

Pat is a tax consultant lecturer at Mercia Group.

Pat originally trained and worked in the profession for Ernst & Young, Grant Thornton and KPMG before moving to the University of Derby as their senior tax lecturer. Her time at Derby included undergraduate and professional tax training as well as being involved in examinations and publishing projects for ACCA and other professional bodies.

This led to a ten year period with the Financial Training Company now Kaplan where she was Tax Product Director for the Midlands as well as becoming well known as a prominent exam based tax lecturer. Over her career Pat has been actively involved in the tax professional bodies including serving as a Council member for 12 years for the Association of Taxation Technicians.


James joined Mercia in October 2022 as VAT trainer and consultant.  His role involves writing technical material as well as devising and delivering VAT training courses. 

James has a wide experience of VAT and indirect tax, beginning his VAT career with HM Customs & Excise (as it then was) before moving to the private sector in 1995 and gaining his CTA qualification.  Latterly, he had VAT partner and head of VAT roles in Grant Thornton and Mazars. 

Outside of work music remains a keen interest.  Aside from playing jazz on the tenor sax, James is a regular member of the trumpet section of the Leeds Project Big Band. 


Peter Rayney practices as an independent tax consultant. His main specialisms are corporate tax, company reorganisations, corporate finance tax (including company sales and acquisitions) SDLT, IHT and all aspects of owner managed business taxation. Before he set up his own practice in 2009, Peter worked at BDO as a tax consultancy partner and latterly as the firm’s National Tax Technical Partner.

He is a widely-recognised tax author and lecturer and regularly contributes to the professional press. He has now won Taxation's 'Tax Writer of the Year' award an unprecedented three times in 2002, 2014 and 2018. Peter also received the ‘Outstanding Contribution to Taxation by an Individual’ award at the 2022 Taxation Awards. Peter is the immediate past President of the Chartered Institute of Taxation and previously chaired the ICAEW Tax Faculty Technical Committee.


Peter Herbert

Peter qualified as a Chartered Accountant with an international accountancy firm before working in industry. He has over 20 years of training experience. He writes and presents technical updates for firms of accountants and qualified accountants of private and listed companies. Peter specialises in financial reporting, auditing and practice regulation. Peter also regularly carries out compliance reviews for firms of accountants which provides him with an invaluable insight into the practical financial reporting and auditing issues that they face.


Louise Dunford

Louise has been continuously involved in training and consultancy since 1987, both for professional firms and for commercial organisations. She also worked as an associate senior lecturer at the University of Portsmouth. Louise specialises mainly in aspects of practical employment law, company law and on professional negligence, and has published widely in leading academic and professional journals.

She is an associate of Complete HR Ltd, providing practical and pro-active assistance with employment and HR issues for SMEs.

 


Janet has led the Grant Funding team at Moore Thompson, as the firm’s Grant Services Manager, since 2016. With more than a decade’s experience in grant research and bid writing, she works with a variety of clients, including charities, SMEs, rural businesses, and multi-agency partnerships. During her career she has assisted with the implementation and funding of several large developments, including multi-million-pound Government-funded projects. She works alongside Moore Thompsons’ existing team to identify potential grant funding opportunities for clients and assist them with the successful preparation of bids and tenders. As an accomplished researcher and bid writer, she has a long track record in securing grants – attracting considerable funding to support local businesses and communities.

One Day Conference
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