HM Revenue & Customs corporate asset seizures spike by 145 per cent September 12, 2016 The taxman has cracked down on collecting outstanding tax from UK businesses. The number of businesses whose assets were seized by HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) in 2015/16 was 1,592, up a staggering 145 per cent on the prior year of 649 seizures. The increase reflects the fact that amount of tax overdue hiked from £15m to [...]
Trade secretary Liam Fox has faced a fallout from some sloppy rhetoric. But he makes a very valid point about exporting September 12, 2016 Things haven't been going smoothly for the newly appointed secretary of state for international trade, Liam Fox. First, he became embroiled in an unseemly row with the foreign secretary about who stood where in the Whitehall pecking order. Then he got overexcited about the potential for a free-trade deal with Australia, only for our antipodean friends [...]
Getting creative: As agency margins get thinner, CHI & Partners’s Sarah Golding explains how the advertising industry can keep attracting young talent September 12, 2016 There are so many creative industries; young people have never had greater choice,” says Sarah Golding, chief executive of CHI & Partners. Attracting talent, she believes, is the biggest issue facing creative agencies today. “It is hard for creative agencies in the marketing industry to attract them; the best ones are in the centre of town and [...]
City Moves for 12 September | Who’s switching jobs September 12, 2016 UHY Hacker Young UHY Hacker Young has appointed Martin Jones as a new partner in its London audit and assurance team. Martin joins from Ecovis Wingrave Yeats, where he was a partner in the audit team. He brings over 30 years of experience providing audit, financial reporting, outsourcing and advisory services to firms of all sizes, across a range [...]
Business as usual after Brexit blip, declares accounting firm BDO as confidence edges back September 12, 2016 The economy suffered a “short, sharp fall” in the days after the EU referendum, before confidence rushed back and things returned to “business as usual”, a new survey has found. Like most other economic indicators, BDO’s confidence tracker has jumped back in August after hitting a three-year low in July. Firms told the accountants they [...]
Italy is just three plausible steps away from crashing out of the Eurozone September 12, 2016 “Never ask a question if you don’t know the answer” – Common courtroom adage "Plausible threat” is a term of art in political risk analysis, meaning the peril being discussed can come about through entirely possible events. Martians disrupting France’s upcoming presidential election would not be a plausible threat (fun though it would be). On the [...]
Epos Now founder Jacyn Heavens on luck, crying, making the most of Brexit and getting mashed September 12, 2016 Within minutes of meeting Jacyn Heavens, founder of Epos Now, we’re debating whether he should wear a suit for TV appearances. The upshot is that he feels like he should, but it doesn’t feel very him. Whatever he ends up wearing, you’ll likely see a lot more of the serial entrepreneur. Last week, he was [...]
London will remain a world-leading city because of its world-beating talent September 12, 2016 When people think of London, our city’s iconic buildings, red buses, black taxis, and vibrant cultural scene often come to mind. But the capital offers so much more than that, with PwC finding in a recent report that London, for the second year in a row, is the world’s number one place for companies to do [...]
Is a hard Brexit looking increasingly likely? September 12, 2016 Alex Deane, common councilman in the City of London Corporation and managing director at FTI Consulting, says Yes. Those obsessing about “the deal” we get with the European Union miss some basic truths. People and companies trade with one another, not nations. We are highly successful in economic relationships entirely without a trade deal: we have no [...]
First time buyers still waiting for Brexit boost as banks demand higher deposits September 12, 2016 The Brexit vote has not been the boon for first-time buyers many forecasters expected it might be, new analysis of prices and mortgage data has revealed. In the aftermath of the referendum, many expected house prices across the country to dip, making it easier for hard-pressed savers to get a foot on the ladder. However, [...]