London Sports Festival moves from 3×3 basketball success to pickleball at the City of London Corporation’s Guildhall Yard
Boris Johnson expected to reveal ‘national living wage’ hike October 6, 2021 Prime Minister Boris Johnson is expected to announce plans to raise wages for the country’s lowest paid earners to around £9.42 per hour. The increase will boost the pay of minimum wage workers over the age of 23 by around 5.7 per cent, more than double the previous increase of 2.2 per cent in April [...]
HMRC annual pension stats: ‘The genie is well and truly out of the bottle’ October 4, 2021 HMRC published its annual update to personal and stakeholder pensions statistics at the end of last week. The document included an update on the impact of the lifetime and annual allowance tax charges. Moreover, HMRC also shared the most recent data for flexible pension payments under the pension freedoms rules. Scrutinising the data for City [...]
Thousands of business face insolvency as ban on liquidating firms ends today October 1, 2021 As the Government is phasing out its restrictions on winding-up petitions, lenders and creditors can legally seek to liquidate a company that they believe is unable to pay their debts from today. According to Rebecca Dacre, partner at City-based tax and audit firm Mazars: “With the restrictions on winding-up petitions coming to an end within [...]
Exclusive: End of furlough could be the ‘final ingredient in a catalyst for disaster’ September 30, 2021 The end of furlough payments could be the final ingredient in a catalyst for disaster for businesses, according to restructuring and insolvency lawyers City A.M. spoke to this morning. With the winding up of the job retention scheme today, they warned that the 1,348 registered company insolvencies in August could rocket in the months ahead. [...]
Thousands of UK businesses at risk of insolvency from this week, City auditor warns September 29, 2021 Thousands of UK businesses that have struggled during the pandemic are at risk of collapse as the government ends its temporary insolvency measures this Friday, a top audit lawyer has warned. From Friday, the Government is phasing out its restrictions on winding-up petitions, meaning lenders and creditors can once again legally seek to liquidate a company [...]
Shortages are a devilish dance with Covid and Brexit September 28, 2021 There’s an old cartoon that has Satan outside a church, crying. A passer-by asks him what’s wrong and he responds “They blame me for everything in there!”. For the past 18 months, Covid has been the folk devil of almost every business issue. Look at what’s happening now, with fears of a further “winter of [...]
End of furlough: ‘Time for the UK economy to put its big girl pants on’ September 27, 2021 This week, the government’s £70bn furlough support scheme comes to an end. The end of the Job Retention Scheme, or furlough, will force organisations to make decisions regarding the future of furloughed employees. City A.M. sought the views of a number of small business owners about whether now is the correct time to remove the [...]
The ICAS public voice – tax administration post-covid September 27, 2021 As we begin to emerge from Covid-19, a key strand of the public policy work undertaken by ICAS relates to tax administration. ICAS has a public interest remit, a duty to act not solely for its Members but for the wider good. From a public interest perspective, our role is to share insights, shaped and [...]
Editorial: Tax-hiking ministers aren’t entitled to demand pay rises, too September 27, 2021 To listen to Government ministers at the moment, one could be forgiven for thinking we were in the middle of an economic boom. Amid an entirely predictable collapse in haulier numbers and knock-on shortages, the response so far has been on the one hand an underwhelming visa scheme and on the other a demand for [...]
HMRC delays move to make income tax digital by another year September 24, 2021 HMRC has delayed its planned move to make tax digital (MTD) by a further year, now scheduled to come into force in April 2024. The delay means businesses or landlords with a business income of over £10,000 a year will have now have an extra year to prepare for the digitalisation of income tax. General [...]