There’s something deeply distasteful about the Treasury’s wriggling on Cadbury Schweppes. The government announced yesterday its idea that...
View articleI’ve made occasional use of the Freedom of Information Act to ask about big tax cases, and the government’s view on non-domiciliaries (the...
View articleDavid Cameron has snubbed the CBI conference, deciding to go to Iraq instead. I have always got on well with CBI people, but I have to confess I think...
View articlePrivate Eye reports this week that Sir Clive Thompson, the former Rentokil boss and now well-known chairman of Farepak before it went bust, was being ...
View articleThe outcome of the Varney review appears to be significant. The former chairman of HM Revenue & Customs has proposed clearance procedures for busi...
View articleI was amused to read at the weekend that the government wants to convince the online gambling industry to come onshore. I already knew that the govern...
View article…you notice details in people’s wills that are almost certainly tax related. I read this over the weekend about John Peel. The trust set u...
View articleIs anyone else bored of the sterile debate on the Tories’ tax policy? Practically everyone in the UK seems to have contributed their opinions on...
View articleSir David Varney was the man who said when he was the chairman of HM Revenue & Customs that ”If I want something done, I go to Customs; if I...
View articleBlackberry users could be charged tax on the personal e-mails they send, according to various reports circulating. The original idea, I’m told, ...
View articleHSBC has got itself into a bit of a stew over tax. Chris Spooner said last week to an institute conference that HSBC had moved HQ in the past and woul...
View articleOne thought on the GSK settlement over transfer pricing the other week. The coverage tended to focus on Glaxo having a big tax bill (and less on the f...
View articleWhenever an organisation’s restructuring is going badly, and job cuts are on the agenda, it’s always a bit difficult to be in the finance ...
View articleIt’s been a while since the last post. I’ve been on holiday, and I’ve just taken on a new job at Accountancy Age, so it’s been...
View articleBoth of the following articles are worth a look. Daniel Davies, a Guardian blogger and stockbroker, suggests that tax advisers might start getting the...
View articleI’ve been criticised for saying unpleasant things about the NatWest Three (like they should be punished if they’re guilty, an astonishing ...
View articleWhat to make of the departure of Sir David Varney from HM Revenue & Customs? He has got a new job which many are describing as at least a sideways...
View articleAnother year, another audit qualification. HMRC accounts were qualified by Sir John Bourn for the fourth year in a row this week. The news comes as no...
View articleThree cheers for Lord Carter, then. Except there’s one aspect to this saga that dismays me slightly from a professional point of view. We as jou...
View articleRichard Murphy, the tax campaigner whose robust views on tax avoidance and evasion wind up many at the Big Four (they tend to whisper that he is someh...
View articleI don’t know quite how they did it, but the directors of MG Rover seem to have run into every complicated tax rule going. First they had issues ...
View articleHere’s a shameless plug for something else we do at Accountancy Age that you may not know about. I’ve been listening to the Insider Busine...
View articleThe Times letters page, often a good source of interesting comment about tax, today leads with a discussion about whether corporation tax rates should...
View articleRichard & Judy’s case against the taxman (which I think we can now prefix with the word ‘celebrated’) was covered by almost ever...
View articleThere’s so much going on at the moment I don’t have time to blog it all! So here are some highlights. The debate on multi-nationals ponder...
View articleJealous Guy’s question, featured in Taxation recently, about whether or not politician’s wives’ hairdos were taxable as a benefit in...
View articleI have made a mistake. Both in the magazine, and below, we say that Peter Shilton won his tax battle with the Inland Revenue. Alas not. I’m told...
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