Clare Josa | Author And Keynote Speaker

UK's Foremost Imposter Syndrome Expert, International Keynote Speaker & 8x Author

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Voted Best Cake Ever By The Kids: Gluten-Free, Sugar-Free Victoria Sponge

Nourishing Recipes

One of the things I have missed the most since I went gluten-free and sugar-free is Victoria Sponge cake. I’m talking the lightness of the vanilla sponge, the deliciousness of the jam and the lashings of cream…

But sugar turns me into a grumpy witch, and wheat makes me balloon at least two dress sizes, so saying no to the delicacies in the cake shops and kids’ parties is fairly easy, as soon as I consider the consequences.

My ‘bubba’ turned 10 recently and I ended up baking 3 cakes in one week – one for school, one for home and one for his party. All of them were sugar-free and gluten-free, and with this much experimenting going on in my kitchen, I decided it was time to try out the Victoria sponge cake. I chose to make it as the ‘home cake’, in case it was a disaster (then I could feed it to the dog and cats!) and because it’s secretly my favourite.

And I was over the moon when, not only did the recipe idea work, but my kids voted it the “best cake ever”.

So I’m sharing it with you in the hope it might inspire you to try it out – and hopefully fall in love with it.[image_with_animation image_url=”18683″ alignment=”center” animation=”Fade In”]

Ingredients for Gluten-Free, Sugar-Free Victoria Sponge Cake

Makes enough for 10 ‘polite’ people 🙂
P.S. I apologise that it’s not vegan and dairy-free, too. I guess I had to draw the line somewhere for my experimenting. And, of course, this much butter, honey and cream means this is an occasional treat, rather than a daily splurge. But then I know I don’t really need to tell you that, do I? 😉 xx Clare

  • 8 oz butter (yes, butter, not margarine – unless you know of a healthy margarine) – at room temperature – i.e. softened but not liquid
  • 6 oz runny honey
  • 8 oz gluten-free flour – you can either use a sugar-free blend (DO check the ingredients!) or I used a mix of buckwheat, rice & quinoa flour plus 1/2 teaspoon of xanthan gum – or you can use Doves Farm Gluten-Free flour plus 1 level teaspoon baking powder.
  • 5 medium eggs – separated into separate bowls for the yolk from white
  • 1 level teaspoon baking powder (check it’s gluten-free)
  • seeds scraped from 1 vanilla pod – or equivalent of vanilla essence (again look out for sugar on the ingredients)
  • 5-6 tablespoons sugar-free jam – I used Meridian organic blackcurrant spread
  • 250 ml double cream for whipping (we’re blessed to have raw cream from our local farm shop!)

Instructions For #BestCakeEver Victoria Sponge

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    • Line the base two 8 inch sandwich cake tins (i.e. round and about 1 inch high) with greaseproof paper & pre-heat your oven to 180C or equivalent

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    • Whisk the egg whites until forming soft peaks – not as much as meringues but still white and fluffy.

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    • If you need to de-seed the vanilla pod, make a light score along the length of the pod, so you are only opening one side, then use a teaspoon to scrape along the open inside of the pod. You’ll get a good collection of seeds. There’s no need to throw away the pod – keep it safe to make a vanilla pudding or other recipe another time.

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    • Beat the butter, honey, xanthan gum, baking powder and vanilla together until they go a lighter colour and look fluffy. I use my Grannie’s geriatric electric whisk and it takes about 1 minute. By hand it’s more of a labour of love. This stage is important, because it really helps with the lightness. I add the vanilla, xanthan gum and baking powder at this stage so that I know they’re well-blended.
      You might want to test for sweetness at this stage, especially if your family has a sweet-sugar-tooth. If it’s not sweet enough, you can add a little more honey or a level teaspoon of ground cinnamon.

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    • Add the egg yolks and half the flour and beat well until combined.

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    • Gently beat in the rest of the flour with half of the egg white, until well mixed.

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    • Stir in the remaining whisked egg white – this really helps to make the final sponge fluffier.

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    • Divide the mixture equally between two cake tins and gently smooth / flatten the top. It may be runnier than you are used to, but it should still be a thick cake mixture.

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    • Bake in the pre-heated oven until well-risen, golden brown on top and gently separating from the edges of the tin. Use a sharp knife to test the middle of the cake – it will come out clean if it is cooked. Depending on your oven, this will take between 25 and 35 minutes.

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    • Take the cakes out of the oven and leave them to cool completely in their tins.

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  • To assemble the final cake, remove the halves from the tins and take off the greaseproof paper. Place one half on a plate and cover the top with the jam. Whip the cream and spoon roughly on top of this. Then use the final half of the cake to squidge it all together. Serve immediately with a slightly smug smile and watch it disappear.

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So how did you get on? Did your family enjoy this delicious gluten-free, sugar-free Victoria sponge recipe? If you want to make it, will it be for a special occasion? Or ‘just because’?

Did you tweak it? Are you a habitual-recipe-experimenter? Or do you follow them to the letter?

I’d love to hear from you via the comments!

And as those of you who already hang around here know, I normally write about how to reconnect with your heart and soul, whilst living in a head-based world, but food it still a hugely important part of that, so I include regular Soul-food recipes as part of my other articles and videos. If you’d like to stay in touch and catch the latest inspiration for Soul-Sized Living, then please make sure you’re getting my free updates.

Until next time, with love, Namaste,
CJ Sig

If I Had To Simplify Everything I Teach About Gratitude Into Four Simple Words…

Inspirational Quotes

If I Had To Simplify Everything I Teach About Gratitude Into Four Simple Words…
What Would They Be?

Those of you who know me well know that I write a LOT about how gratitude is a brilliant way to get out of your stress-head and back into living from your heart. But I was challenged by a friend this week to sum it all up in a single sentence – so here it is!

Enjoy The Little Things

 
Read on for insights as to why these simple words are so potent.
 
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There is so much wisdom tied up in these four simple words.

Let’s start with the word ‘Enjoy’: I’m curious – what kind of response does that invoke for you?

For some of us, the idea of ‘enjoying’ ourselves is second nature.

For others, it’s far from being part of our daily existence.

Do you give yourself permission to enjoy your experience of life? Or have you convinced yourself that life is meant to be hard work? Perhaps ‘enjoying’ comes at some unspecified ‘later’ point? That there’s no room for ‘enjoying’ or even ‘joy’ in your hectic schedule?

Can you imagine how different your life would become if you suspended that old conditioning and gave yourself loving permission to enjoy this moment, right here, right now? As you’re reading this article:

  • allow yourself to enjoy the experience of breathing – you might like to pause and say to yourself, in your mind, “I enjoy breathing in and calming my body… I enjoy breathing out and letting go.”

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  • press pause on the commentary about any aches and pains and allow yourself to be fully in your body, enjoying its presence, whatever stories you normally tell yourself about it

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  • allow yourself to gently smile (triggering endorphins – your body’s natural happy chemicals) – enjoy the feeling as those hormones kick in

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  • give yourself permission to fully enjoy whatever it is you are set to do today, even if it would usually fall under your ‘have to’ list

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    Enjoying – appreciating – feeling grateful or thankful for – it’s all about reconnecting with your heart – in this moment.

    What happens, as you let yourself enjoy? And… if it feels hard for you… what might NOT happen, if you let yourself enjoy? (Let me know via the comments!)

    arrow-no-bgAnd if you’re running the ‘life has to be hard’ limiting belief, here’s an article that can get you started on shifting that one in the next five minutes: How to handle limiting beliefs
    And if the phrase ‘have to’ runs the show in your inner dialogue, here’s an article that will help you to set yourself free to enjoy your day.

    Now let’s move on to the word ‘little’: and here’s a trap that most of us fall into:

    Most of us hold out for the ‘big stuff’ and hand our happiness over to events outside of our control.

    You can spot this one if your inner dialogue ever comes up with phrases like:

    I’ll feel happy, when….
     
    It’ll all be ok, when…
     
    I’ll be able to relax, when…

    Spotting a theme?

    We’re so fixated on some big event or thing that’s outside of us and at some point in the future, that it’s like we postpone our happiness and inner peace to some unspecified future date.
    If you spent just one minute a day focussing on noticing the little (or even tiny) bits of your life that are going well, you could transform your experience of life, in just a few weeks.

    No matter how many years you have been stuck waiting for the big stuff to come in, before you allow yourself to enjoy feeling happy, you can start to retrain your brain, one minute at a time.

    And it’s not that the big stuff isn’t important – of course it is – but the small stuff is already there, patiently waiting for you to appreciate it and to lift your spirits, right now. If this one resonates for you, then you might love joining in with our Great Gratitude Challenge – it gives you all the ‘how to’ you need on this one!

    And finally, we’re onto ‘things’: and here I have a word of warning for you!

    The word ‘things’… It’s so easy to fall into the ‘things-trap’.

    This one is where we think that ‘things’ – objects and ‘stuff’ – will lead to our happiness. We can even make the collection of ‘things’ our primary goal in life, without even realising it.

    And yes, ‘things’ do have an important role to play in our lives. But they’re only the beginning of the richness of our experience.

    The English language is seriously limited on this one. I’m dreaming of finding a word that means ‘things’, but that also includes ‘non-things’ – like:

    • the kindness of a fellow driver who lets you out of that tricky junction

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    • the colours of the sky when your early start means you get to see the sunrise

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    • the unexpected heart-felt smile from the checkout assistant as you buy your morning coffee

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    • Your favourite song unexpectedly playing on the radio on your way home

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    • Somebody doing you a favour, without being asked – and maybe you don’t even know who they are?

      • You’re getting what I’m saying here?

      Life is about so much more than ‘things’ – it’s about everything that makes up our experience.

      So my invitation to you with this one is to enjoy the little ‘things’ that come to you during your day – whether they’re stuff you can touch and hold or see or hear or taste or smell. They all add to the richness of life. And choosing to enjoy them is a miracle-worker.

      I’m wondering: has any of this resonated for you? Were you falling into the ‘enjoy’ or ‘things’ traps? How might it shift your day if you were to choose to “Enjoy the little things” – even for just the next 5 minutes?
      And – if you play with this – what do you notice?
      Please let me know, via the comments!

      And if your heart is calling you to discover how even just a minute of gratitude each day could change your life, here’s where you can join us (free!) on the Great Gratitude Challenge. I’d love to see you there.

      With love, Namaste,
      CJ Sig

You Shouldn’t Ignore That Pesky Monkey Mind – Because You Get What You Believe…

How To Change Your Life

I was working with a mentoring client recently who is talented, quick-thinking and highly motivated, but also feeling miserable, frustrated and stressed.

It didn’t take much probing to discover that an out-of-date belief of “life has to be hard work” was causing much of the problem. And this person didn’t even realise they were running that belief… Fortunately getting it sorted was

A belief is like a filter in your mind. It impacts what you notice – what you’re aware of – how you experience life.

Not knowing how to handle your beliefs can lead to you feeling stuck and at the whim of life. If you have had enough of that and you’re ready to take back control, then the techniques in this article will help you move things to the next level. Are you ready to set yourself free?

What we believe is what we get.

Let’s use an example to illustrate this:

Imagine that Fred has been working on a report for his boss. He knows it’s a good report, but he also believes that his boss will criticise it and make him feel bad. After all, it has “always been that way”.

What kind of mood do you think Fred is in, when he goes into his boss’s office? That’s right – tense, nervous, a bit stressed, perhaps ready for a fight.Click here to share on FacebookHis boss reads the report and sees that it is really good. He and Fred have a discussion about it. The boss acknowledges the good stuff and makes one or two suggestions for improvement.

Instead of leaving the office feeling upbeat and motivated, how do you think Fred is feeling? That’s right – cross, hurt, annoyed and generally fed up. Why? Because his belief – the filter – didn’t spot the good feedback. He was looking for the criticism, so that’s all he experienced. He was looking for the criticism, so his mind filtered out the positive feedback and immediately started feeding stories around the bad bits – all tied in with how unfair his boss is.

Our beliefs are like choices that get stuck in time. Once we have made them, instead of setting us free, they close the doors to other choices. They limit other responses because they have such a major impact on our experience of life.

Another example:
It’s something that scientists and researchers, for example, struggle with all the time. I remember from my college days that even physical world research (conducting wear experiments on diesel engine exhaust valves!) was at risk of my beliefs.

And guess what impacted that interpretation?
You’ve got it: my beliefs – my hypothesis – about what the causes of the wear might be.

It took a “second opinion” in the form of my supervisor (who had different beliefs) to help me stay open-minded with the data, rather than dismissing the information that contradicted my theory.

But it’s not just the “bad beliefs” you need to watch out for!

It’s obvious to see how a “negative” belief can be limiting. But even a so-called “empowering belief” can restrict your choices. When things change, then that old empowering belief could hold you back from your growth and expansion! The empowering belief puts you in a box, just as much as a “negative” belief. The only difference is that the empowering belief has a longer shelf life, before it causes problems!

So if a “good” belief can do that, just imagine how much a “bad” one can do!

The great news is that we can change our limiting beliefs.

They’re far from being set in stone. Father Christmas, tooth fairies, the world being flat – beliefs can change.

And, if we’re on a path of personal growth, then spotting our beliefs and bringing them into our conscious awareness is a critical key for setting ourselves free from the auto-pilot programmes that most of us are running.

Every time you spot yourself reacting to something in a way that doesn’t make you feel good, chances are there’s a belief at play, that needs some attention. There are techniques we can use to dissolve away the old belief and choose more flexibility and freedom in our lives.

Click To Tweet This: Our beliefs impact what we expect. And what we expect is what we will see.

If you expect miracles, they will find you.
And giving gratitude for what you already have is one of the most effective ways to become a magnet for miracles.

Click To Tweet This: Beliefs, like clothes, were never intended to be worn forever. If they no longer fit, it’s time to say goodbye!

We pick up our beliefs from the most random of places – usually without even realising.

Sometimes we get them from our family or teachers, sometimes we pick them up from the media and our perception of society’s beliefs and expectations of us.

Wherever they come from, all beliefs have one thing in common:

Our beliefs either block or enable that which we want create in our lives.

How to handle a limiting belief?

One of the easiest techniques is simply to notice the problem and ask yourself:

“What is it I believe about this situation or this person? Is that the more resourceful belief I could hold?”
No? What could I choose to believe instead?

If you notice yourself doing, saying or thinking something that no longer “fits” for you today, all you need to do is catch yourself at this game and allow yourself to choose another option.Click here to share this on Facebook.

And if you really want to dive in and deal with some old, out-dated limiting beliefs, there are some ways you can make it easier for yourself:

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Have you ever spotted your beliefs holding you back? And if you get to play with today’s technique, which shifts did you notice?

How about sharing your experiences via the comments box. I’d love to hear from you.

And if you know someone who might appreciate a nudge, please do share this article with them!

With love, Namaste,
CJ Sig

How Can A Minute Of Gratitude Possibly Change Your Life?

Inspirational Messages

I often get people looking at me in disbelief when I tell them they can change their life in under a minute.

So I figured I owe you an explanation about how it all works.

It all starts with the fact that the thoughts you think create the emotions you feel, which impact which thoughts you choose to feed. It’s a cycle. Your mind and your body are linked.

If you create a shift in one, you’ll create a shift in another.

You see, your body doesn’t care whether you’re actually experiencing something, say, scary or just imagining it. It will fire off the same stress hormones and chemical reactions either way. And those hormones and chemicals help you to keep feeding the thoughts you need to be thinking in a survival situation.

Similarly, whether you are in the middle of something happy or just imagining or remembering it, your body fires off the endorphins that make you feel good. And those endorphins help you to think happier thoughts.It takes about sixty seconds for the thoughts you’re thinking to impact and shift the chemistry in your body. That’s why, when I ask you to spend a minute thinking about gratitude, it’s a minute, and not just one thought. It has to be long enough to actually create those chemical reaction shifts – then it becomes more sustainable.Perhaps you feel it for yourself? There’s often a point during the minute of gratitude when something shifts – almost like a switch being flicked – that sometimes feels like a sigh of relief as you let go of the stress and tension and surrender to feelings and thoughts that lift your spirits. That’s when you know you’ve done it! And have you noticed how that feeling lasts much longer than the minute you were thinking about gratitude?Looking at this from another angle, I was once taught by a Buddhist monk that any thought, left to its own devices, will pass through in under sixty seconds. He knew that the emotions that went with that thought could be equally transient.

The reason why we end up feeling miserable for hours or even days is because we feed the thoughts and keep telling ourselves the stories about ‘miserable’, which keeps feeding the corresponding chemical reactions in your body – so it can go on and on and on.

If you want to retrain your brain’s auto-pilot habits to feed happier thoughts, then you need to get past that sixty second mark little and often.

Want Better Results For Half The Effort?

For those of you taking part in the Great Gratitude Challenge, by the end of week two you’ll find that you get much better results by doing your gratitude minute, say, five times a day than a one-off ten minute block.

So you get better results for half the effort.

The more often you practise focussing on feeling grateful, opening your heart and mind to see what’s going well, rather than just what’s going wrong, the more it will shift your general thoughts throughout your day.

All you need to do is to remember to do it!

So I’ve got two questions for you – and I’d love to hear from you via the comments:

How will you remind yourself to spend a minute, several times a day, focussing on gratitude?

and

What does a gratitude minute feel like for you?

With love, Namaste,
CJ Sig

Dealing With The #1 Life-Change Excuse, Once And For All?

How To Change Your Life

Is It Time To Deal With The #1 Life-Change Excuse, Once And For All?

Over the past decade of helping people to change their lives, there is one excuse that comes up over and over again – and I know I have used it often enough myself.

It’s the one reason that sneaks in and silently sabotages even the most well-intentioned New Year Resolutions and life-change commitments.

And, in truth, it’s the easiest objection to deal with – once you know how to spot it, tie it down and tell it where to go!

So what is the #1 life-change excuse?

“But I don’t have enough time!”

When you’re stuck in the middle of ‘doing’ your old thoughts, feelings and habits, it can feel difficult to take the time out to stand back and become aware of which bits you want to change. Yet that time will repay you, every single day, for the rest of your life.

We become so convinced by our ‘lack of time’ excuses, that there’s no room left for us to change.

Would we rather spend the next fifty years going through the pain and hurt and everything else we currently feel – and all the ‘dis-ease’ it brings with it – than dedicate a few minutes a day to making the shifts we secretly dream of?

Is it really true that our lives are too full, to find the time?

Surely much of our time is taken up by the very patterns we want to shift?

Here’s a solution:

How To Magically Create The Time To Change Your Life

It’s true that we often believe we don’t have enough time. But there’s a difference between truth and belief.

We believe our stories and excuses, because – at some unconscious level – they protect us from having to do the scary thing and actually make those changes. We tell them to ourselves so often that they become a pseudo-truth that we no longer question – like ‘received wisdom’. And because our friends and family tell themselves (and us) the same story, we even start to believe in other people’s excuses!

But is it really true?

It’s funny how, for example, if someone falls in love, they suddenly find plenty of free evenings and weekends to spend with that wonderful new person. They watch less TV; they read fewer magazines; they spend less time on the internet; they spend less time on chores – often working more efficiently; they waste less time on distractions; they use their time more intentionally; they drop anything that’s not essential.

If you can do all of that to find time for someone else, is it really so hard to find 5-10 minutes a day for yourself? To do something that could improve your life, each and every day, for the rest of your life?

There are many ‘important’ jobs and distractions during a day that steal our time; things that crop up unexpectedly, to which we give our immediate attention. Everything else falls off the table, including the time we had set aside for working on ‘ourselves’. Yet if we were to tell those distractions, “I’ll come back to you later,” it’s amazing how often they either go away or take less time.

The classic example is a phone call. You’re in the middle of something important, but you answer the phone anyway. The conversation takes ten minutes, then you go back to what you were doing. But you found the ten minutes for the interruption.

So why do we tell ourselves that it’s so hard to schedule in ten minutes to change our lives?

What would happen if you simply put the time in your diary?

How much easier would it feel to make that commitment to yourself, if you actually schedule it?

And it’s worth looking at the ‘real’ reasons behind the ‘time excuse’.

What are you worried will happen, if you do make that change?
What are you worried won’t happen any more?

If we’re really honest, if we’re still using the ‘not enough time’ excuse, then perhaps we haven’t really committed to making that change, yet?

My Top Tips For Finding More Time

  1. Set a time for your change practice each day – and stick to it. Treat it like an appointment.
  2. Be realistic. By all means set yourself a challenging goal, but break it down into achievable chunks, to fit alongside your other commitments.
  3. If something needs to drop off the table, to create the time you need, take action to make that happen.
  4. If you need moral support, ask for it! Your family, friends and colleagues might surprise you with their desire to help and support you in making those changes.
  5. Figure out WHY you want to make that change. Then each distraction can get weighed against the ‘big why’. It makes prioritising so much easier!

I’m curious: have you been using time as an excuse?
Is it time to stop that?
Which change could you commit to find time for – today? Please let me know, via the comments!

arrow-no-bgThis is a bonus article from A Year Full Of Gratitude – join us today and discover for yourself what the excitement is about !

Updates From Our Meeting With HMRC, HM Treasury and A Minster On 4th December 2014

From Passion To Purpose

A small group of us had a very important meeting on Thursday – and thank you so much to Emma Jones of Enterprise Nation for helping it to happen.

We met with Jim Harra (Director General of HMRC Business Tax), Ian Stewart (Director of Indirect Tax, HMRC), Mike Cunningham (Senior Policy Advisor, VAT & Excise at HM Treasury) and David Gauke MP (Financial Secretary to the Treasury), as well as a member of the #10 Policy Unit, a representative of Vince Cable’s office and many other senior officials.

Your views were heard at the highest level.

Updates From Our Meeting With HMRC, HM Treasury and A Minster On 4th December 2014 – And How You Can Help With The Next Steps

We are still waiting for official minutes from the meeting, but in the meantime, I know that many of you are patiently waiting for an update. So this article includes some of the key points that were discussed. If any of the attendees spot anything that I have mis-remembered, please let me know and I’ll update!

I really want to reassure you that your voices have been heard, and the very senior decision-makers in that room do now understand the magnitude of the challenges we’re all facing. We believe that they are committed to finding practical, workable solutions.

The details on how to join VAT-MOSS without losing your UK VAT threshold will be out next week. From the initial comments it sounds pretty sensible and workable. We have asked them to make sure that the guide is written in terms that lay people can understand – without having to hire an accountant.
The HMRC / Treasury / Minister were genuinely surprised by the depth of feeling about the new EU VAT regulations among the micro business community. We genuinely believe they hadn’t understood how many of us there are and how big the administrative and human cost would be of implementing the legislation. They are committed to taking action and want to make sure that it doesn’t force any of us to close our doors.

But we need to keep campaigning.

In the meantime, PLEASE keep writing to your MP and your MEPs. It’s especially important for anyone in the non-UK EU to write to their MEPs, because we need to raise politicians’ awareness outside of the UK, for them to want to address this problem. The UK can’t change European VAT law on its own. Thank you!

Our Primary Aims

  1. A de minimis level (ideally the £81,000 UK VAT threshold) below which businesses would be exempt from the new EU VAT rules on place of supply for digital services, removing the administrative burden and avoiding tens of thousands of them having to close.

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  2. Micro businesses cannot reasonably obtain and check the 3 pieces of ‘place of supply’ evidence during the purchase process. We therefore ask for an exemption allowing micro businesses to be able to use just the customer’s self-declared address as proof, otherwise we will either have to cease trading or break the law.

Updates From HMRC & HM Treasury

  • The details on how to submit VAT-MOSS returns without losing your UK VAT exemption (currently £81k) should be out next week (w/c 8th December). Jim Harra (Director General of Business Tax at HMRC) made it really clear that they had had two options – one that was easy for them, but hard for us, and one that was harder for them, but easier for us. And they chose the latter. They really want to remove the headache from this process and we are hopeful that next week’s clarification will be positive news.

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  • You will be able to reclaim your Input Tax (i.e. the VAT on things you have to buy to run your business) based on the percentage of your sales in the non-UK EU, if you’re registered for VAT-MOSS. In other words, if 30% of your sales go to non-UK EU, then you’ll be able to reclaim 30% of your input tax. Hopefully details on the ‘how to’ will be out next week.

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  • You no longer have to pre-emptively register for VAT-MOSS in advance of your first post-January-1st non-UK EU sale. You will now be able to register up to the 10th day of the following month. Hopefully this will be confirmed in next week’s HMRC document.

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  • It was confirmed by HMRC that the intention is to roll these VAT changes out to cover all products (not just digital services) in the future – perhaps as soon as 2016. So if it doesn’t affect your business yet, it will then. The rules and processes that are set now, for digital sales, are those that will apply for all sales in the future. That is why it is ESSENTIAL that we all join in with the campaigning.

Other Points We Raised

  • It’s not that micro businesses don’t want to comply with the legislation, it’s that we simply can’t, without either using 3rd party platforms (who take a big cut) or upgrading to highly techy shopping cart systems. We cannot reasonably capture the required 3 pieces of data for proof of place of supply – we simply don’t get given it by the micro-business-level payment processors. So we are faced with the choice of either closing our doors or breaking the law, after 1st January.

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  • Many of the 3rd party platforms, who are legally required to handle the EU VAT accounting on our behalf, have only recently become aware of the changes and will not be ready in time.

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  • The third party platform option often isn’t as attractive as it sounds. Not only do some of them take between 30% and 70% of the sale as commission, but they will also have to levy UK VAT on the sale, if you sell within the UK, meaning you effectively lose your UK VAT exemption threshold. The new rules, intended to prevent off-shoring of tax by large multinational resellers (no names mentioned!) could actually end up driving more people to only be able to sell via those companies.

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  • We have been hearing rumours that SOME countries in the EU are allowing businesses below their local VAT threshold to be exempt from the new EU VAT rules. We have asked HMRC and HM Treasury to investigate this as a matter of urgency.

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  • We cited the “Great Olive Oil Crisis of 2013” as setting a precedent where regulations were revisited when it became clear that they would privilege large companies over small businesses because smallest enterprises simply couldn’t afford to comply.

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  • Corporate levels of regulation are accidentally being applied to micro biz on the proof of place of supply. HMRC had a genuine belief that the 3 pieces of data were easy for us to collect and that if we couldn’t collect them, third party platforms and payment processors would do it all for us.
    After Thursday’s meeting they know totally understand that this is not the case and that’s why we need them to go full-steam-ahead on the ‘self-declared address’ option.
    They can see that the level of errors in VAT allocation for member states would be minuscule, compared to the cost of people going out of business because they can’t comply. Hopefully they will successfully lobby and there will be a victory for common sense.

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  • The cost of implementing this legislation for micro businesses is much higher than just the administrative costs. Rosie Slosek, who runs One Man Band Accounting, explained to the Treasury that many of the people who are running micro businesses are using them to stay off benefits – or to be able to work whilst also having young children – or whilst caring for dependent relatives. The potential social cost if these businesses close is much higher than the potential lost VAT revenue.

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  • We also talked about the fact that most micro biz use fixed prices at checkout and won’t know how much VAT they should be charging until AFTER the consumer has clicked the ‘buy’ button. So you don’t know if the VAT should be 0% (UK exemption) or 27% (Hungary). You can’t add the VAT on after they have started the purchase process, so you would effectively have to accept a whopping 27% cut on your income from a Hungarian sale.

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  • We helped the attendees understand that, whilst some micro businesses are brilliant at the techy stuff, most feel proud if they manage to embed a PayPal ‘Buy Now’ button into their website – so just imagine how they will react to being told to handle APIs to gather and decode IP addresses.

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  • We raised the issue of conforming with Data Protection legislation and asked the HMRC to investigate whether we would need to register with each of the 28 member states, in order to retain the required proof of place of supply for the requisite 10 years.

Things that might surprise you…

  • The teams at HMRC and the Treasury didn’t realise quite how many micro businesses will be affected by these new rules. Their impact assessment estimated that around 40,000 businesses, UK-wide, would need to register for VAT-MOSS. An independent estimate from E-Nation’s consultant puts this figure at nearer 250,000.

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  • At the time of the meeting, Andrew Webb (HMRC) confirmed that only about 400 firms have registered for VAT-MOSS so far… With less than 4 weeks to go.

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  • In the UK, we’re fortunate in having the ‘Mini One-Stop Shop’ (MOSS) to help us with the new regs. Lots of EU countries aren’t as lucky as us and don’t get a MOSS system so will have to register with and pay VAT to each member state individually.

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  • If one of the other member states ‘catches’ you selling goods to their state without sending over the VAT, for a ‘first time offender’, the correspondence (and penalties) will be handled via HMRC, rather than you having to become fluent in the accounting terms of another language.

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  • 3rd party platforms (i.e. resellers who handle the sale and the e-delivery) will be liable for accounting for the EU VAT on your behalf. BUT many of these companies are tiny – often with only a handful of UK / EU staff – and many of them only found out about the new legislation a couple of weeks ago, with the ‘Twitter storm’. It’s vital that we keep up the pressure for an exemption for micro businesses, because the 3rd parties won’t be able to meet the January 1st deadline.

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  • Although you might think that there has been no publicity about the EU VAT changes, HMRC has been travelling around the UK doing roadshows and seminars for over 18 months. They have had consultation groups and sent out mailings.
    BUT they had so far only targeted companies that were already VAT registered, because they genuinely thought this would include the vast majority of businesses affected by the rules.
    They now have a clear understanding of how many of us they missed.

What They Need From Us

We urgently need evidence that other countries are having problems with implementation, too, otherwise it’s 27:1 in the EU meeting room, ganging up on the UK.
Most other member states are reporting no issues with the implementation of the legislation.

HMRC and HM Treasury urgently need information of what other countries are doing to help their smallest businesses on this – and also how widely it is being communicated. It was generally felt that there is an unusually high level of awareness in the UK, in no small part due to the huge efforts of everyone who took part in the social media campaigns and press lobbying in the past two weeks (thank you!)

That’s why we NEED URGENTLY EVERYONE in this group who is non-UK EU to write to your MEPs and your equivalent of HMRC to (1) explain specifically how the legislation is a problem for you and (2) to allow companies under a certain threshold to be exempt from it. PLEASE
We need to provide them with the evidence they need. As soon as we can.

Our Next Steps

We will get a de-brief from Mike Cunningham (Treasury) on his EU fiscal attaches meeting last week, this coming Wednesday (10th December). He was going to raise our two appeal points during the meeting.

We are also actively collecting case studies from across Europe of how the new rules will impact your business. Please let me know via the comments if you’d like to submit a case study.

We are also launching a survey to find out, quantitatively, how the legislation will impact micro businesses. I’ll let you have the link to it as soon as it’s ready (early next week).

For now, PLEASE keep writing to your MP / MEPs / regulatory bodies / government equivalent of HMRC. In a world where we’re hearing that ‘no one is complaining’, we need LOTS of loud voices NOW. Especially given that timing is so tight. Thank you!Thank you so much for your support! Everything you can do to help will make a difference. xx Clare

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