The taxman collected an extra £3.75bn from VAT investigations into small businesses last year February 4, 2019 The taxman collected an extra £3.75bn from small and mid-sized businesses (SMEs) last year through investigations into the underpayment of VAT, up 12 per cent on the previous year. The extra revenue HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) collected through VAT investigations made up half of all revenue collected through investigations into SMEs in 2017/18, according to [...]
Sweating under today’s tax return deadline? It might be time to let your accountant go… January 31, 2019 Left your tax return until the last minute? Desperate to avoid a fine? Take a few tips from me, an award-winning financial technology journalist. Well, okay, the “award” came from Guildford Magistrates Court – in the form of compensation against my useless accountant at the end of a small claims hearing. That verdict was an [...]
City Hall and BBC under fire over stamp duty agreement for new Olympic Park studios January 29, 2019 City Hall has come under fire for agreeing to underwrite half of the stamp duty that could be levied on the BBC when it opens new studios in the £1.1bn Olympic Park development. Last summer the broadcaster announced it would build a brand new set of studios at the east London site by 2022/23, in concert [...]
Dyson’s move is not hypocrisy – it’s shrewd January 28, 2019 Among some of the more committed anti-Brexit activists it has become fashionable to levy the charge of hypocrisy against pro-Leave business figures whose commercial activity appears insufficiently patriotic. For those Remainers for whom Brexit is synonymous with an inward-looking philosophy and a narrowing of the UK’s horizons, it is incompatible for someone to support Brexit [...]
JD Sports owner heads list of the UK’s top 50 taxpayers January 27, 2019 Financiers, hedge fund managers and housebuilders dominated a new list revealing the UK’s biggest taxpayers, published on Sunday. The Sunday Times tax list, which also includes high profile names such as David and Victoria Beckham, estimates the amount of tax paid to HMRC by the UK’s wealthiest people based on publicly available information. Read more: The [...]
English gin makers toast boom in sales as spirits reach record high January 24, 2019 Surging demand for gin has led to a boom in England’s alcohol industry, which registered more distilleries than Scotland last year for the first time ever. Figures in the alcohol industry are hailing a “ginaissance” with sales of the juniper-flavoured spirit in the UK hitting an all-time high in 2018, as London gin bars and [...]
No Boris, springing aimless policy promises on the public is not the way to make change January 21, 2019 The tax burden in the UK is at a 50-year high, accounting for over 34.5 per cent of GDP. Nevertheless, MPs from across the political spectrum like to propose new and higher taxes – the implementation of which increase the burden on families, who are already struggling from Britain’s cost of living crisis and lackluster [...]
Editor’s Notes: It’s easy to see why Gillette’s latest ad was not the Best A Man Can Get January 18, 2019 The "father of advertising” David Ogilvy once said “I do not regard advertising as entertainment or an art form, but as a medium of information”. Were he around today he would have to concede that the current industry takes a different view. Today’s advertising campaigns are meant to be shared, reviewed and discussed whether they [...]
Parent trap: the child benefits system has ended up punishing the very people it was designed to protect January 16, 2019 For high-flying parents who earn more than £50,000 a year, the child benefit system will seem ridiculous. You go through the effort of applying for the benefits (over the course of a year, this amounts to £1,000 for the first child, and £700 for each additional child), only for the money to be clawed back [...]
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) [...]