Ryanair boss Michael O’Leary calls Flybe a ‘loss-making turkey’ in stinging rebuke to chancellor Sajid Javid January 28, 2020 Ryanair boss Michael O’Leary has issued another sharp rebuke to chancellor Sajid Javid in the wake of the government’s rescue of Flybe, this time saying the UK’s business strategy is “doomed to fail”. In a letter bound to further escalate the row between the two, O’Leary called the struggling regional airline a “loss-making turkey”. He [...]
Entrepreneur tax relief to be scaled back in Budget January 27, 2020 The government will reportedly scale back a tax break for entrepreneurs amid concerns it is overly generous to the wealthy. A senior cabinet minister told The Financial Times that the Chancellor Sajid Javid is drawing up plans to curb the tax break. The Conservatives’ general election manifesto outlined plans to review and reform the relief. [...]
For businesses relying on EU tax directives, what happens after Brexit? January 23, 2020 Businesses are currently eager to know what shape any post-Brexit trade agreement with the EU will take and what tariffs or other barriers might apply to goods and services. However, when considering financing operations and investment abroad, businesses also need to look at the EU tax directives that facilitate cross-border financing flows. A repeated question [...]
UK property transactions soar after General Election January 21, 2020 UK property transactions soared at the end of last year, according to government data, as both sellers and buyers made the most of renewed confidence following the General Election result. Residential property transactions in December jumped 6.8 per cent year-on-year to 104,670, a 6.2 per cent rise on November’s number. The total number of non-residential [...]
EY TaxChat: making Self Assessment quick, easy and cost effective January 17, 2020 According to HMRC, 11.5m UK taxpayers were required to complete a Self Assessment return in 2019. EY research¹ shows that many worry about getting something wrong if they do it themselves (33 per cent) and find the process complicated and time consuming (15 per cent). A further 12 per cent also said they can’t afford [...]
Flybe’s government rescue deal is much smaller than you think January 17, 2020 Regional airline Flybe has hit back at claims by its competitors that it has received favourable treatment from the state, after it struck a rescue deal with the government earlier this week. The struggling carrier sought to correct reports that the government had deferred a tax bill of more than £100m to keep it aloft. [...]
Flybe rescue secrecy is absurd January 17, 2020 So much for open government. It shouldn’t be too much to expect the ministry responsible for the public finances to disclose the potential liability to taxpayers of a private company bailout. Yet in the Treasury’s statement about the government-backed rescue of the regional airline Flybe this week, there was scant detail and even fewer numbers. [...]
Don’t let corporate governance turn into a box-ticking exercise January 16, 2020 Last week, some of the UK’s biggest businesses received a rap on the knuckles, as the Financial Reporting Council (FRC) published its annual review of how well companies lived up to the Corporate Governance Code. Some FTSE firms, the accounting and governance regulator argued, were simply “paying lip service to the spirit of the Code”, [...]
UK SMEs chasing £50bn in late payments January 9, 2020 Small and medium sized businesses (SMEs) across the UK are chasing a combined £50bn in late payments. New research from digital banking platform Tide reveals that the average UK SME is chasing five outstanding invoices at once, wasting an hour and a half every day. Read more: HMRC collects £4.4bn from SMEs through investigation of [...]
Government to review rollout of controversial IR35 tax reforms January 7, 2020 The government said today it will review the rollout of controversial tax plan IR35 which is due to take effect in April 2020. IR35, which aims to prevent workers from disguising themselves as freelance contractors as a way to pay less tax, is being extended in April. Under the changes private sector employers will be [...]