Income tax banding

so i dont 100% understand all of this hence why i cited the entire thing but it is clear that with the current state of our project that we need not worry.

we would undoubtedly fall into the first band which is un-taxable.

"How much Income Tax you pay

After your allowable expenses and any tax-free allowances have been taken into account, the amount of tax you pay is calculated using different tax rates and a series of tax bands.

Income Tax rates 2011-12 by tax band and type of income

Income Tax band	Income Tax rate on non savings income	Income Tax rate on savings	Income Tax rate on dividends
£0 to £2,560 Starting rate for savings	Not available	10%	Not applicable - see basic rate band
£0 to £35,000 Basic rate	20%	20%	10%
£35,001 to £150,000 Higher rate	40%	40%	32.5%
Over £150,000 Additional rate	50%	50%	42.5%

Because the rate of Income Tax you pay on savings is worked out after any non-savings income has been taken into account, if your non-savings income is less than the starting rate for savings limit (£2,560) - or if savings and investments are your only source of income - your savings income will be taxed at the 10 per cent starting rate up to the limit. But if you already have non-savings income which takes you above the starting rate limit, all of your savings will be taxable at the 20 per cent basic rate, the 40 per cent higher rate or the 50% additional rate, depending on your total income.

Remember, the tax band applies to your income after your tax allowances and any reliefs have been taken into account - you're not taxed on all of your income.

'Non savings income' includes income from employment or self-employment, most pension income and rental income.

'Dividends' means income from shares in UK companies.

Savings and dividend income is added to your other taxable income and taxed last. This means you pay tax on these sorts of income based on your highest Income Tax band."

(http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/incometax/basics.htm#6)

registering as self employed

so registering as self employed is a case of do it as soon as possible, in terms of working, and if you dont do it then you could face a penalty fare. it is apparent that you must register as self employed even if your business venture does not turn over enough profit to be taxed.

NI- national insurance

again you must register to pay national insurance, at £2.50 a week(band 2) unless your earnings are below £5,315 for the year then you must apply to ensure that you are exempt from paying the national insurance.

in terms of our business venture, as we would be setting up as a sole trader then we would all have to register as self employed and also for national insurance band 2 then at the end of the year we would have to fill in a tax return in order to equate accurately the amount we should be taxed. with the type of company we have it would be very very difficult to estimate our income and growth, hence saving a portion of each months wages to pay for the tax.

(http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/selfemployed/register-selfemp.htm)

becoming a sole trader

so i begun research into what legal structure our business should have and how we manage it.

http://www.businesslink.gov.uk on this website information is provided to help starter businesses with the setup process. a list and description is given for the different types of legal structures for companies.

they include:

Sole traders

Partnerships - ordinary partnerships, limited partnerships, LLP

private companies - private limited, private unlimited

public limited companies - PLC

specific types of limited companies - CIC, RTM, SE

European economic interest groupings - EEIG

uk establishments of overseas companies

Franchises

which one suits us?

i would personally say that for now the sole trader legal structure would suit us as we are a start up company with very little knowledge in business, by choosing this option we are not tied in to any long term agreements and do not have to pay any fees.

although we do have to manage all of our own income as self employed individuals and the companies profits have to be carefully managed.

here is the breakdown for a sole trader:

Sole trader

Being a sole trader is the simplest way to run a business - it does not involve paying any registration fees, keeping records and accounts is straightforward, and you get to keep all the profits. However, you are personally liable for any debts that your business runs up, which make this a risky option for businesses that need a lot of investment.

Set-up

You need to register as self-employed with HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC).

Management and raising finance

You make all the decisions on how to manage your business.

You raise money for the business out of your own assets and/or with loans from banks or other lenders.

Records and accounts

You must:

• make an annual Self Assessment tax return to HMRC
• keep records showing your business income and expenses

Profits

Any profits go to you.

Tax and National Insurance

As you are self-employed:

• your profits are taxed as income
• you pay fixed-rate Class 2 National Insurance contributions (NICs) regardless of any profits you make
• you pay Class 4 NICs on any profits

Liability

As a sole trader, you are personally responsible for any debts run up by your business. This means your home or other assets may be at risk if your business runs into trouble.

(http://www.businesslink.gov.uk/bdotg/action/detail?itemId=1073789606&r.i=1087521916&r.l1=1073858805&r.l2=1085161962&r.l3=1073865730&r.s=sc&r.t=RESOURCES&type=RESOURCES)

proposed tees/hoody designs for 2011

so here is a mock up of a design for this years ravensbourne t-shirt/hoody

reason for both is the time of year, i.e. its too hot for a hoody but people still like them because it is a jumper they will keep for ever even if they dont wear it right away and the t-shirt is there for the quick sell factor, almost looks like a crew shirt for like rave live stuff.

Wed the 25th

so at college today a small group of us began to discuss the merchandise situation, i.e. whether or not to make the merchandise to support and promote the business, that probably wont sell or make merchandise that is quick money and will sell.

so personally from an entrepreneurial perspective i would start by producing merchandise that makes money, to quickly fund the research and creation of the website. as the website becomes more of a solid idea and is nearing completion i would introduce the merchandise as an advertising campaign to support the release of the website. as it stands at present the website has no clear cut mission statement and is not in a commercial state. i do not see students spending money on apparel and merchandise that supports a non existent company.

my proposal:

1.we sell custom t-shirt designs along with badges and anything else that students are willing to buy.

2.the point was raised that there was no attempt to create a ravensbourne hoody this year. apparently students have been asking for it but the service has not been available. with some research the hoodies from previous years were bought and made for £10 a piece and easily sold at £20 each.

possible outcome we make more money than we could have, but this takes time away from designing the business model for the website. i will present this to the group tomorrow.

Brand legal issues

http://www.dare.co.in/strategy/legal-policy/brand-management-checklist-legal-issues-in-brand-management.htm

domain name and trademark copyright part deux

source material:

http://www.bitlaw.com/internet/webpage.html

http://www.web-source.net/trademark.htm

so after some research i discovered some interesting articles on the above websites. it is not just the domain name we should be concerned about but our names impact on the business world.

trademark infringement occurs "when one party utilizes the mark of another in such a way as to create a likelihood of confusion, mistake and/or deception with the consuming public. The confusion created can be that the defendant's products or services are the same as that of the trademark owner, or that the defendant is somehow associated, affiliated, connected, approved, authorized or sponsored by trademark owner. Since most web sites will contain discussions of products or services, web site developers should be aware of the potential trademark issues."

for example with our name the first thing that comes to my mind is 3 mobile

http://www.3-mobile-store.com/?et=3mobile

seeing as this is such a big company i would advise a name change in order avoid legal confusion.

- the third network - network is another name/phrase for phone networks.

- third - 3

- on the other hand network can stand for connections between people

personally i would avoid this title/brand after reading about how easy it is for confusion to occur. perhaps in our market research we could see if the public would link us to any other company. as the main clause with trademark infringement is that of confusing the public into making links between companies.

domain name and trademark copyright

so our group has a little dilemma over the choice of our brand name. The Third Network.

at first it seems like a great name, until our market research discovered a small company in america that sold mobile phones. they do not currently own a website and are in the process of building one. even though we offer completely different services this still counts as infringing upon copyright.

here is the number 1 hit on google for "the third network" http://www.thethirdnetwork.co.za/

it is a blog page and as such is unimportant, but it is the reference to the mycell company, http://www.google.co.uk/search?rlz=1C1SKPC_enGB362GB365&aq=f&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=the+third+network, a couple of hits down that worries me. although the link does not go anywhere, page 404 not found- error, it still shows that this company is out there and we must consider legal repercussions.

the majority of the group is unfased by this as the domain name "thethirdnetwork" is available.

options:

-change our name to something that does not exist

-stick with our name as legal action is highly unlikely.

- alter the "third" to "3rd"

legal stuff

right so after a little bit of research i came across a disclaimer and copyright that are up ona website called http://www.websitefreestuff.com/disclaimer-legal.html this webssite helps to people to set up legitimate websites and also helps with the understanding of legal issues. so these two documents were up there for people to use.

Website Free Stuff - Website Disclaimer

The materials contained on this website are provided for general information only and do not constitute any form of advice. UK Internet Sites Ltd assumes no responsibility for the accuracy of any particular statement and accepts no liability for any loss or damage which may arise from reliance on the information contained on this site. Links to other websites from these pages are for information only and UK Internet Sites Ltd accepts no responsibility or liability for access to or the material on any website which is linked from or to this website. By providing links to other websites, UK Internet Sites Ltd does not guarantee, approve or endorse the information or products available at these websites, nor does a link indicate any association with or endorsement by the linked site to Website Free Stuff or UK Internet Sites Ltd.

Website Free Stuff - Website Copyright

© UK Internet Sites Ltd 2002. Save to the extent expressly permitted below, the context of these pages may not be reproduced or transmitted or made available on a network in whole or in part without the prior consent of UK Internet Sites Ltd. These pages may be downloaded or printed for your personal and private use provided that you make no alteration to any of these pages and you do not use any part of the pages in any work or publication in whatever medium stored.

i believe that with an addition that includes some of the jargon associated with our service this could be a very reliable and foolproof bit of information.

after the formative assessment

after the meet we sat down as a group and discussed our next step Carlos, group leader, stated that he was sorry but he needed to go. sensing that this would result in no work getting done i asked him to let people go for a quick lunch while he wrote down a job list and a mission statement. he was concerned about the fact that our group is soo large, around 11 people, and that it was hard to allocate jobs. so seeing the potential in the group i reminded Carlos that the creation of a physically working website was not really achievable with our skills and the time frame so my suggestion was this.

i asked Kofi, the web designer, if he could make the website. he replied no i dont know how to do all you want and there isnt enough time. so i asked if he would be able to make an offline prototype website displaying the bare bones of how the website would work with a couple of profiles. he was much happier with this and said that that would definatley be possible.

stage 2 was to suggest increasing our merchandise team and use that as a quick earner to generate income to support the long term website project, at the same time as creating merchandise that would promote our films and the we would in turn be able to create merchandise that would promote our website as a brand.

by making the merchandise team bigger i also suggested making a deputy team leader who would manage the merchandise half of the project, so in effect we have 2 teams that our working towards different short term goals but the same long term goal.

with this business model we will be able to devote more time to the merchandise and increase sales whilst working closer on the website and refining the idea, with the intention of selling the website model to the college at the end of the project.

Carlos thought the idea was a good one and that it made sense with our strict deadlines. so boom thats the current plan. and i opted that Hayleigh be promoted to leader of merchandise as she had put all the effort in previously.

the formative.

formative assessment time....

our group was in for 12 so we met before and discussed the project and its current position, we gave feedback upon the work that people had done and again my logo got mixed reviews "it looks like a space ship?"

so the meeting met with a tutor and began to discuss the project he was initially shocked by the large number of participants and then progressed to quiz carlos on the project. i found it particularly shocking that the tutor had evidently not read our project plan that we had submitted 3 weeks ago now as all the questions asked had been addressed in that document. but oh well that was how it was. i asked a couple of questions around the legal side of things such as tax and the possibility of having to set ourselves up as a private company. i was assured that the money that we would be making would not quantify as having to register as a company or to register as self employed.

i also asked if we as students had any legal protection from the college in terms of lawsuits surrounding copyright. i feel it is very possible that our website could encroach on services already available. once again the tutor was relatively vague and basically said that i shouldnt worry as that wont happen.

at the end of the meeting i asked the tutor to judge the level of idea that our project has to which we got around a mid level C+ stating that its good but its been done before and needs an edge to make it slightly more entrapaneuriable.

meeting with linnea

so we had a very long day of lectures from an external speaker who knew a great deal about making businesses. it was very insightful but as i am not interested in setting up my own company i found my attention span waining.

all of the group apart from Alex C, Chris C and myself left college early, resulting in us arranging a meeting with linnea to discuss the project.

this is now 2 weeks after submitting our project plan and the tutors had only just received them, bad management if you ask me as this project is so short. we briefed her on the project so far and apologized for the rest of the group not being there and that we would be speaking on behalf of the team leader.

she believed that the project was indeed very interesting but in order to make it successful we would have to decide whether or not to link ourselves to the college. if so then Carlos must arrange a meeting with Jill Hogan, head of marketing at Ravensbourne, this would be to ensure support from the college as we would be using the colleges name to promote the web space.

we should also arrange a meeting with the head of the degree show in order to find out whether or not they had already planned to make such a website. then we were advised to have a discussion with Jared Taylor, animation tutor, to progress the idea and see if he had any thoughts on the project.

we also voiced our concerns over other team members commitments to the project and we were reassured that people would be marked individually and that all marking would be based on effort.

so i made a note of all of these points and messaged the rest of the group with the outcome of the meeting

a slightly revised version includes "network" to complete the logo. this added extra rounds the logo off very nicely and will be me submission to the team and we shall see if it is successful.

more logos

after some mixed feedback from the group.i.e. they were not really impressed with unfinished designs so i went away and spent some more time progressing my favourite designs instead of producing a multitude of mediocre ones.

by far the best ones here are the white on black ones and i feel that the left one is great but too vague whereas the far right design is near perfect as it represents the name but in a very graphic fashion.

initial designs

this initial design page reflects some of the ideas that i have sketched in my sketch book. my scanner iss currently unavailable so i will upload that at a later date.

the designs are in no ways finalized but are representative of shape and form. i have been thinking of a logo that incorporates the roman numerals for 3 and use of light. i have also been thinking of how the students who are graduating from college will be the ones present on the website, so its all about new fresh ideas so pushing the logos a bit more futuristic.

i also came up with a slogan " we are 3" simple but creates a sense of brotherhood/collective.

i particularly like the two bottom left designs the orange and the white one.

legal stuff attached to websites

here in my initial research i was able to highlight areas that i need to research further but also areas that i can instantly refer to in the coming weeks.

Copyright – dont steal from other peoples websites.

Create original material to avoid copyright

fair use policy

if you use someones work then you must ask to use that work and then it must be credited within the website to avoid copyright

domain names- have to make sure there is not a registered website that already has the name that you wish. It is also advisable to make sure there is not a company that already exists with the chosen domain name, as this would infringe upon copyright laws.

Defamation – creating false statements about people or companies that damage their companies, slander.

Disclaimers produced along with terms and conditions to secure the individuals work but also states that the company cannot be held accountable for an individual plagiarizing work as they are responsible for the legitimacy of their work.

We cannot be held responsible for any injuries obtained through use of this website.

We will need a formal contract that outlines payment methods and what people will receive from the service that we provide. The contract will also include the disclaimers and terms and conditions which prevent us as a company being sued for anything.