It is a nightmare that plagues both business and private users alike, but cyber security experts are continuing to fight back against the online crooks using email scams targeting their organisations.

The UK’s cyber police force, the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC), has published guidance for businesses on a new reporting tool that can be added to their organisation’s Microsoft Office 365 accounts where potential scams can be reported directly to the NCSC’s Suspicious Email Reporting Service (SERS).

It is just one weapon in the long battle against online criminals and comes as the cost to the UK from cybercrime incidents amounts to £5.7 million this year.

More than ever the internet is vitally important to the UK economy but is also exploited by those wishing to cause harm – with cybercrime being largely invisible but having devastating effects on companies and their employees.

A generation of tech-savvy younger people has also become a prime target for scammers and phishers.

Phishing is when attackers attempt to trick users into disclosing personal information by clicking a malicious link that will download malware, or directing them to an insecure website.

There have been 14,883 cybercrime incidents involving scammers and phishers since the start of the year, with one-third of the total losses, £1.9 million, coming from businesses, according to fraud prevention experts PPC Shield.

Since 1 January this year, their survey shows that 43 per cent of reported incidents involve hacking, fake social media posting and email scams.

Since its launch in April 2020, the Suspicious Email Reporting Service has received over 6,500,000 reports from the public – resulting in the removal of more than 97,000 scam URLs.

Link: UK reports £5.7 million of losses due to cybercrime

Couples may be missing out on tax breaks without realising it, according to HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC).

Savings can be made both with Income Tax and Capital Gains Tax (CGT) by using their personal tax allowance.

For CGT, a couple’s two allowances (each equal to £12,300) can be combined to reduce the final tax bill on a transaction like selling a second home.

But for nearly two million couples who are married or in a civil relationship, the ‘Marriage Allowance’ can also be used and save up to £252 per annum in Income Tax.

This can be backdated to include any tax year since 5 April 2017. If your spouse or civil partner has since died, you can still claim.

If one partner earns below the Personal Allowance threshold of £12,570 and the other is a basic rate payer, then 10 per cent of the lower earner’s allowance can be transferred to the higher earner.

For the current tax year, that figure is £1,260, which means an annual tax saving of £252. Multiply this by the backdated four years and you could have a saving of £1,220.

For couples who have been together for many years, a change in circumstances like the effects of the COVID pandemic, where they may have lost a job but have found lower paid employment, could also mean they are now eligible.

Angela MacDonald, HMRC’s Deputy Chief Executive and Second Permanent Secretary, said: “Marriage Allowance lets eligible couples share their Personal Allowances and reduce their tax by up to £252 a year. Nearly 1.8 million couples are already using the service – it is free, quick and easy to apply, just search ‘marriage allowance’ on GOV.UK.”

Claims are automatically renewed yearly but couples should notify HMRC if their circumstances change.

Visit GOV.UK to find out more about Marriage Allowance.

Link: 1.8 million couples benefitting from extra tax relief

The National Minimum Wage has been in place for more than two decades. It currently stands at £8.91 per hour for adults over the age of 23 (The National Living Wage), while the lowest figure is £4.30 per hour for an apprentice.

While a sizeable number of breaches will be down to errors or incorrect interpretation of the rules, a few unscrupulous employers are abusing it and have come up with some dubious excuses for not paying what is a legal requirement.

HMRC has published some outrageous excuses for not paying:

• She does not deserve the National Minimum Wage because she only makes the teas and sweeps the floors.
• The employee was not a good worker, so I did not think they deserved to be paid the National Minimum Wage.
• My accountant and I speak a different language – he does not understand me, and that is why he does not pay my workers the correct wages.
• My employee is still learning so they are not entitled to the National Minimum Wage.
• It is part of UK culture not to pay young workers for the first three months as they have to prove their ‘worth’ first.
• The National Minimum Wage does not apply to my business.
• I have got an agreement with my workers that I will not pay them the National Minimum Wage; they understand, and they even signed a contract to this effect.
• My workers like to think of themselves as being self-employed and the National Minimum Wage does not apply to people who work for themselves.

HMRC says it has issued more than £14 million in penalties to employers who failed to pay the correct rate of the National Minimum Wage or National Living Wage in the 2020/2021 tax year.

More than £16 million in unpaid salaries was also recovered which should have been paid to more than 155,000 workers across the UK.

Link: HMRC reveals absurd excuses for not paying National Minimum Wage

Official research has found increasing confidence amongst SME employers, with 26 per cent saying they expect to increase their employee headcounts over the coming year.

The findings from the Small Business Survey, carried out by the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS), show that the number of small employers – those with fewer than 250 employees – that expect to employ more staff is more than two-and-a-half times those who expect to see their payrolls shrink.

Despite the impact of the pandemic, the proportion of employers expecting to take on more staff has already exceeded 2018 levels (25 per cent) and is approaching the 28 per cent recorded in 2019.

Meanwhile, the proportion of employers expecting to reduce their headcounts in the next year has fallen sharply from 16 per cent in 2019 to just 10 per cent this year – despite the furlough scheme coming to an end this month.

The accommodation and food, arts and entertainment, health, information and communication and administration were the sectors most likely to foresee rising numbers of employees.

The survey also uncovered optimism about the prospects for revenue growth, with 41 per cent of SMEs expecting turnover to grow in the coming year, while just 16 per cent expected to see a fall.

Around 67 per cent of SMEs reported that they had made a profit or surplus during their most recent financial year, with profitable businesses being relatively evenly spread across micro, small and medium businesses.

Link: Longitudinal Business Survey: SME Employers – UK, 2020