HEALTHCARE BUSINESS - April 2010

Planning for the sale

As private individuals, the sale of our family home may well be the biggest financial transaction we ever undertake. In the same way, the owner of any care home business will hope to realise a profitable sale at
some point, either on a disposal of the whole business or perhaps by selling off part of a care home group.

For the business owner, though, there is one important difference, which is the need to plan well in advance of any such transaction; the corporate finance departments of the big accountancy firms typically recommend a preparation period of at least three years. This allows time forthe vendor to try to build up a pattern of accounts that reflect healthy and consistent profitability, but also provides an opportunity to present the home and its management...

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HEALTHCARE BUSINESS - Feb 2010
If you don't ask...

Acouple of years ago, a story hit the American press about an Ohio woman who called a builder in to do some work on her house. The builder knocked a hole in the wall and found wads of money stashed away up to 80 years previously, worth around half a million dollars.

Most of us do not have bags of $50 bills sitting within our walls, but many properties do contain enormous hidden
value in the form of unclaimed tax breaks. Care homes are prime candidates for such potential and changes to the tax rules introduced in April 2008 have only served to increase the possible tax savings. A tax repayment can be worth having at any ...

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HEALTHCARE BUSINESS - Jan 2010

Light in the gloom

As the dust settles on the June Budget, nobody can be in any doubt that business and personal finances will be under strain in the near future. In the care sector, the press ures are inexorably building as the national minimum wage rises once more from October (to £5.93 for the standard rate), followed by the VAT increase to 20 per cent from early January. The National Insurance changes applying from next April are much more complex, with alterations to num erous thresholds and limits, some of which will not be announced until this autumn. We do know, though, that National Insurance rates are rising by one per cent from April. Those pay ing care home fees, meanwhile, will be watching their own costs and seeking to save...

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