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Accountants Journal : UK Accountancy News & Views
UK accountancy news, views and opinions for people inside & outside the accounting business.
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It's Capitalism, Jim, But Not As We Know It
One of the main tenets of 80s Thatcherism and its big brother Reaganomics was that it is 'the market that decides'. Free market capitalism has been the predominant thread in political and economic life ever since. Even thereotically left wing governments like Clinton's in the USA and New Labour in ...
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Treasury VAT Move Not Big and Not Clever
A move by the Treasury to withdraw tax concessions for temporary workers in the City of London has been met with predictable and, it must be said, quite justified, howls of outrage. The Treasury are intending to charge VAT on the wages of temporary staff, which inevitably will cause problems with t ...
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Rental Demand Increases...It's Just Paying The Actual Rent That's The Problem
As spin goes, this article in Property Wire does a good job of suggesting that, as the property prices fall, the increased demand for rental property is 'good news' for landlords. The problem is : while the demand is there; as the energy prices increase and the credit crunch bites, people are actua ...
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Bank of England Decides...Not To Make A Decision
Despite economic forecasts looking fairly bleak and strong arguments for both raising or lowering interest rates, The Bank of England has chosen to ...do nothing. Reuters is reporting that a meeting of the Monetary Policy Committee chose not to raise or cut interest rates, despite increasing inflat ...
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The Sky Is Falling...Or Maybe Not
Fascinating post over at Newsnight journalist Paul Mason's BBC blog regarding the possibility that a major high street bank will go under in "the next year". While Paul is only quoting a conversation between a couple of people involved in hedge funds, this is pretty much the kind of scaremongering ...
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Um, Where's The Apology?
Last year, one of the main complaints among new businesses contacting Just Accountants was that their VAT registration applications seemed to have been stuck in the ether for weeks, even months at a time. The rumour, largely perpetuated by HMRC chief David Harnett, was that one firm of accountants ...
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It's All Too Complicated...I'm Off
It appears that the suggestion by Lord Howe (yes, he is still alive!) to investigate government business tax proposals has met with a favourable response. A number of well-known companies, including Shire and United Business Media, have recently moved out of UK tax jurisdiction because they view th ...
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If We All, Like, Get Together, Man, We Can Save The World
Why is it that the biggest companies in every industry think that, by virtue of their size, they somehow occupy the moral high ground. Witness KPMG, who have just issued a code of conduct for their suppliers, which 'requests' that suppliers adhere to certain environment policies in order to retain ...
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My Desk RIght Now
www.weblogcartoons.com" /> Cartoon by Dave Walker. Find more cartoons you can freely re-use on your blog at We Blog Cartoons. I think they've basically copied my actual desk for this cartoon.
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Will Anybody Buy My Island
I don't know how one goes about showing someone around this type of thing, but apparently the lease on the Island of Herm (in Guernsey, but, of course, you knew that)is up for sale. Herm is a tax haven, so there would be no CGT or death duty and only 20% income tax. A bargain. If you've got the 15m ...
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You're Not Paying For The Time It Takes
Generally, we at Just Accountants have a great deal of sympathy for people who aren't happy with their current accountant and are looking to change. If you aren't getting the service you feel you deserve, then, sure, it's time to find a new accountant. However, there is one caveat to this. Regard ...
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Accountants Not Blogging...Shocker
Accountancy Age seem a little surprised at the low numbers of accountants in the UK who have blogs - suggesting that the number is barely in the double figures. Quite why the surprise, I don't know. Many UK accountants haven't even got their own domain names or proper websites yet - so having large ...
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No More 100% Mortgages For Accountants
Accountants and other 'professionals' such as solicitors and teachers who are looking for a 100% mortgage will no longer find any joy with Scottish Widows. The company has dropped their 100% mortgage offer for professionals in favour of a 5% deposit. While the company itself is claiming that it is ...
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Accountants Quotes and Anecdotes
While I was checking out the rankings of our website in Google, I ran across a couple of pretty funny accountancy quotes, which I thought I'd share with you. I have no use for bodyguards, but I have very specific use for two highly trained certified public accountants. Elvis Presley An accountant ...
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Backlash To Alcohol Tax Rises
It looks like attempts to cut down the amount of binge and teenage drinking in the UK might backfire as major off license chains and supermarkets are putting pressure on brewers to absorb the recent alcohol tax rises. Bargain Booze are quoted in the story as having sent a letter to suppliers, sayin ...
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The Budget
I'm feeling obliged to post something about the budget. There are far, far more qualified people than me to comment on the implications of this particular budget, but the overall tone of response is far from positive. The Daily Mail and Daily Telegraph describes it as the dullest in history, while ...
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Employees In 'Not Always Scrupulously Honest' Shocker
For some reason, this article predicting an 'Enron style scandal' in the UK seems to be generating a lot of interest at the moment. The essence of it is that, according to a survey commissioned by a document management company, "89 per cent [of senior IT professionals] claimed that someone at their ...
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The End of Tax Havens?
Since Germany bought stolen banking records and started investigating the Liechtenstein banking network for tax fraud, there have been increasing calls within the EU to end tax havens. German Chancellor Angela Merkel told a joint press conference with French President Nicolas Sarkozy that "We will ...
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Pick Up The Phone...Or Lose A Client
At Just Accountants, every day we talk to small and medium sized businesses who are looking for a new accountant. We thought it would be interesting to record the reasons they were considering changing their accountants - mainly for our own internal use. We had, rather unimaginatively, expected pr ...
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Schwarzenegger Is....The Accountant
Coming to a screen near you....Arnold Schwarzenegger is...The Accountant. Take a look at this very funny movie parody, starring everyone' s favourite Governator as an accountant :
Accountants Journal : UK Accountancy Ne..
