Christmas shoppers shunned the high street, but attacking Amazon won’t help January 11, 2019 Between the fierce renewal of the Brexit saga, parliamentary shenanigans, and a particularly chilling cold front (interpret that literally or metaphorically, as you will), the merriness of Christmas feels like a thing of the past. But for the high street, it feels like Christmas never came at all. Reports of retail sales, released yesterday by [...]
HMRC claims its online tax evasion crackdown has clawed back £200m January 11, 2019 The government claims to have recovered more than £200m of lost VAT from overseas sellers since gaining new powers, saying its crackdown on online tax evasion is paying off. HMRC has issued over 4,600 ‘red flag’ notices to online marketplaces such as Amazon and Ebay since 2016. The flags, called Joint and Several Liability (JSL) [...]
Nike’s Dutch tax status to be investigated by European Commission January 10, 2019 The European Commission has opened a detailed probe into whether Nike has received an unfair advantage over its competitors by being granted a favourable tax environment in the Netherlands. The Commission said the Netherlands issued five tax rulings since 2006, two of which are still active, which endorsed a method of calculating royalty payments that "may not reflect [...]
People’s Vote campaigners are playing dirty with the facts January 10, 2019 As Monday's Channel 4 drama Brexit: The Uncivil War reminded us, the Remain campaign likes to take comfort in the fact that it tried to win us over with facts and figures, never stooping to the kind of outright lies about the economic benefits of leaving the EU or the threats of immigration indulged in by members [...]
City Moves for Thursday 10 January: Who’s switching jobs at Newton Investment Management, Kirkland & Ellis and KPMG? January 10, 2019 Newton Investment Management Newton Investment Management (Newton IM), part of BNY Mellon Investment Management (BNY Mellon IM), announced the appointment of Jin Philips as head of strategic relationships EMEA. In this role, Jin will be responsible for directing Newton IM’s sales strategy across UK institutional and charity channels and EMEA-partnered distribution relationships. Jin will report [...]
Five ways to clean up your buy-to-let portfolio in 2019 January 9, 2019 While January is a great time to be making financial resolutions, with many over-spending at Christmas, it’s sometimes best to concentrate on making the most of what you already have. For 2.5m people owning £1.4 trillion of buy-to-let, investment property is the best place to start. It comprises an enormous part of personal wealth, it [...]
Confidence sinks to three-year low among London businesses January 8, 2019 Confidence among London business owners has plummeted to its lowest point in three years as sales and cashflows dry up. A poll of 500 businesses in the capital showed companies are less optimistic about the city’s economy than at any time since the survey began in 2016. However the study, commissioned by the London Chamber [...]
Yet more sugar-taxes will leave consumers with a bitter taste January 7, 2019 It's been claimed that Brexit has taken up so much political energy that the government has lost its focus on other areas of policy. But fear not – the slack is being taken up by an army of bureaucrats and campaigners who seek to exert ever more control over our lives. With relentless energy the [...]
Forex 2019: Dollar rally to fade? January 7, 2019 | City Talk The course of 2018 saw a firming in the US dollar against just about every other currency. But the factors that contributed to this steady rise may be starting to diminish. The big question facing the FX markets this year is whether the dollar can continue to push higher or whether the softening in December [...]
From sugar to saving, this government is treating us like a nation of children January 4, 2019 The morning I turned eight, I woke up and told my father that I was “halfway there”. This, in my home state of Connecticut, was in reference to getting my driving licence, a process I could start on my sixteenth birthday. As a kid, this was the milestone that I was most excited to reach, [...]