City Moves for 27 March 2014 | Who’s switching jobs March 26, 2014 Hanson Asset Management The asset management firm has announced the appointment of Jonathan Arthur as head of investment management. He was previously head of UK equities at UBS Private Wealth. KPMG The professional services firm has appointed Dan Roman to lead its UK hedge funds practice. He joined the hedge funds tax practice three years ago from EY, [...]
City Moves for 26 March 2014 | Who’s switching jobs March 25, 2014 BNP Paribas Securities Services The investment custodian has hired Linda Morsia as head of its depositary banking business in the UK. She joins from State Street Trustees, where she was head of client management, sales and business development. KPMG The professional services firm has appointed Maria Maher to its competition economics advisory practice. She was most [...]
Tax avoiders to be forced to pay off bills sooner March 19, 2014 THE TAXMAN will now demand faster payments of income tax and national insurance from people using disclosed avoidance schemes, under further steps to fight the practice. The new rules mean HM Revenue & Customs will hold onto disputed tax while the individual case is ongoing. Osborne referred to the changes as giving HMRC “modern powers to [...]
Sustained bank levy takes £3bn from lenders March 19, 2014 BANKS will cough up almost £3bn in bank levy payments every year for the forseeable future, as the sums on which the tax is based are re-calculated. The chancellor did not increase the rate yesterday, as he had already hiked it to 0.156 per cent of big banks’ balance sheets, the levy’s seventh rise since [...]
Big projects on back burner but London backed March 19, 2014 LONDON housing and transport projects got the chancellor’s blessing yesterday, though shovel-ready projects across the rest of the country were thin on the ground. George Osborne said the government will help “develop proposals” for an extension to the Gospel Oak to Barking Line to reach Barking Riverside, a 11,000-home scheme, and support regeneration at Brent [...]
Osborne helps air passengers and car drivers March 19, 2014 LONG-HAUL flyers got a surprise tax cut yesterday as the chancellor flattened air passenger duty (APD) rates. In a move explicitly aimed at flights to and from South Asia and other fast-growing economies, George Osborne cut the rate for all flights over 2,000 miles to as little as £67 for an economy class ticket. The [...]
Personal tax allowance raised to £10,500 March 19, 2014 The chancellor has announced a rise in the personal allowance from £10,000 to £10,500. However, there had been significant argument as to whether tax cuts would be most effective when directed at the personal allowance or national insurance contributions (NICs). According to polling from KPMG, more than a fifth of firms backed a reduction in [...]
City Moves for 19 March 2014 | Who’s switching jobs March 18, 2014 Lambert Smith Hampton The commercial property consultancy has made three appointments to its national valuation team. Matthew Lemin (right) joins as an associate director in its valuation division. He was most recently at GL Hearn, and has previously worked at Cushman & Wakefield. Riaan Fourie joins as an associate director from DTZ. Matthew Armstrong joins as a [...]
City A.M.’s bumper Budget preview March 17, 2014 As chancellor George Osborne gets ready to unveil the penultimate budget before the general election, we've pulled together all the expected announcements, and what others are hoping for. Deficit Due to the scale of the budget deficit Ernst & Young believe the chancellor has little room for manoeuvre in terms of giveaways. While the Office [...]
Wishes and predictions for Osborne’s budget March 17, 2014 ■ EY suggests there is little room for the chancellor to make big changes, given the spending constraints he has set for the Treasury, and that the OBR’s adjustments will be small. ■ However, the big four accounting firm expects George Osborne to make a move on the top rate of stamp duty, raising the [...]