WHAT THE OTHER PAPERS SAY THIS MORNING October 27, 2010 FINANCIAL TIMES SOUTH AFRICA STILL A DRAG ON ANGLO AMERICAN Anglo American, the mining company, is finding it hard to escape its South African roots despite its efforts to become a cosmopolitan corporate citizen. An array of risks in South Africa, the source of 41 per cent of operating profits last year, is having an [...]
At a glance: George Osborne’s first comprehensive spending review October 20, 2010 SPENDING FIGURES This fiscal year current expenditure will be £637.3bn. In 2011-12, current spending will be £651.1bn, followed by £664.5bn in 2012-13, £678.6bn in 2013-14 and then £692.7bn in 2014-15. The government will pay £43.3bn of gross government debt interest this fiscal year followed by £46.5bn in 2011-12, £52.4bn in 2012-13, £57.8bn in 2013-14 and [...]
Drinks sales see faltering recovery October 13, 2010 NEW figures show that the alcohol industry in the UK is experiencing an “unsteady and uneven” recovery. Latest HMRC figures show beer sales fell in July, adding to publicans’ woes. The volume of beer released for UK consumption was down 1.7 per cent compared to the figure in June and 5.1 per cent year-on-year. The [...]
If fear of HMRC gets you down, cut a deal now September 30, 2010 THE Revenue net is closing in,” warns DLA Piper partner Simon Airey. “They’re creating a little bit of fear, which is what the HMRC like to do.” Sensing a public mood that is increasingly hostile to those who don’t pay UK taxes, treasury secretary Danny Alexander recently earmarked £900m for investigations into offshore tax evasion. [...]
WHAT THE OTHER PAPERS SAY THIS MORNING September 23, 2010 FINANCIAL TIMES HARMAN COOL ON PLAN TO HALVE DEFICIT Harriet Harman has suggested that Labour should scrap its pre-election plan to halve the deficit by the end of this parliament, becoming the latest senior figure to intervene in the debate over economic direction. Labour’s interim leader said the UK was now in a “new situation” [...]
City asked to help taxman during strike September 19, 2010 THE government plans to call in City tax experts to help break a possible strike by tax collectors over spending cuts, it emerged yesterday. Ministers are understood to have asked officials to set up a unit of specialists to move in if taxmen take industrial action over cuts planned in the October spending review. Chancellor [...]
Don’t reward HMRC’s massive failure September 16, 2010 THERE is nothing worse than rewards for failure – somebody should have made that clear to Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs (HMRC), the UK’s woefully underperforming tax body. Rather than displaying some much-needed humility after disastrously miscalculating the pay-as-you-earn (PAYE) income taxes of millions of people, and failing in many other ways over the years, [...]
WHAT THE OTHER PAPERS SAY THIS MORNING September 16, 2010 FINANCIAL TIMES VODAFONE BALKS AT BEING FORCED SELLER Vodafone’s chief executive has warned that he will not be “forced” into selling the UK group’s minority stakes in four mobile phone operators. Vittorio Colao insisted that the sale this month of Vodafone’s 3.2 per cent stake in China Mobile for £4.3bn ($6.7bn) was not done in [...]
IMPACT OF VAT September 16, 2010 Q.As a small business-owner, what do I need to know about the VAT increase? A.The standard rate of VAT is 17.5 per cent at the moment but this will be rising to 20 per cent in three months time. If you are a business that issues VAT invoices, then you must use the 20 per [...]
WHAT THE OTHER PAPERS SAY THIS MORNING September 15, 2010 FINANCIAL TIMES BOND STRATEGY LED TO BIG WIN AFTER LEHMAN The collapse of Lehman Brothers and central banks’ unorthodox monetary policies distorted markets to create some of the biggest pricing anomalies ever documented in bond trading, according to research from leading US academics. A paper from the US National Bureau of Economic Research claims to [...]