Contact UsBritish Chamber of Commerce: Slash tax admin costs
Cost of compliance is becoming business's top complaint, British Chamber of Commerce tells ministers THE BRITISH CHAMBER OF COMMERCE has written to ministers requesting new measures are included in next week's Autumn Statement to cut the cost of tax administration. In an open letter to cabinet office minister Oliver Letwin and business secretary Sajid Javid, the business group said the cost of complying with tax obligations had become one of companies' principal regulatory complaints. "The of complying with the UK's ever-more complicated tax code has rocketed up the list of business complaints in recent years," British Chamber of Commerce executive director of policy Adam Marshall said. "Ministers need to put a brake on the number of changes to tax administration and compliance rules, much as they have done with other forms of regulation in recent years. "HMRC is under a lot of scrutiny from business and individual taxpayers at the moment, and rightly so. By taking steps to reduce the number and frequency of changes to tax rules, the government would at a stroke make a big improvement to the prospects for business." Read More Written by Calum Fuller
Annual reports must ware the creep of irrelevant content
The quality of financial reporting has improved but concerns about the creep of seemingly unproductive and irrelevant content remain, writes Veronica Poole. TO many, it seems that the pace of change in today’s corporate reporting world never lets up. This may be true but real progress has accompanied the ever-increasing requirements and expectations of annual reports in recent years. Deloitte has been undertaking surveys of UK listed companies’ annual reports for about 20 years and the reports we see now are very different to those that were written when we started. For one thing, they’re about three times as long, averaging 135 pages. Part of this change has been brought about by demands for more information from investors, the primary user of a company’s annual report. Sometimes it can seem like investors have an insatiable appetite for more and more information and the task of preparing an annual report is no mean feat. According to a survey of UK investment professionals by the CFA Society, the annual report is the most popular source of information for financial analysis. Most respondents to that survey agreed the quality of financial reporting has improved over the past decade. But a recurring concern about the...
Growth and jobs at risk due to excessive bank taxes, warns City
Joint report from PwC and British Bankers Association finds banks' contribution has risen 55% over course of last parliament. ‘PUNITIVE' AND UNPREDICTABLE taxes borne by the banking sector are risking jobs and growth, a report produced by PwC and the British Bankers Association warns. An estimated £31.3bn was paid into the public coffers last year by banks, with about £15.3bn paid by UK-headquartered banks and £16bn by foreign-based banks, making up 5.5% of government receipts. The report adds that the contribution from irrecoverable VAT is larger than corporation tax and bank levy put together, and says that employment taxes make up more than half of the contribution. Corporation tax is only 11.4% of total taxes borne – for every £1 of corporation tax paid, there is £7.80 in other taxes. According to the report, the UK's six largest banks – HSBC, Barclays, Lloyds, Royal Bank of Scotland, Santander UK and Standard Chartered – paid 55% more this year than they did at the start of the last parliament. Writing in City AM, chief executive of the British Bankers Association Anthony Browne described the burden as "punitive". He wrote: "One the face of it, this all looks like good news. After...
Businesses lambast Tories over apprenticeship tax
Stakeholder groups concerned new tax could discourage training and apprenticeships. THE COUNTRY'S BIGGEST BUSINESS GROUPS have launched a scathing attack on the Conservatives' tax proposals ahead the party's conference in Manchester, which commences on Sunday. Formal submissions sent to the government by the Confederation of British Industry (CBI), manufacturers' organisation the EEF, British Chambers of Commerce (BCC), and the Institute of Directors (IoD) particularly call on the party to row back on proposals to introduce an ‘apprenticeship levy'. Chancellor George Osborne (pictured) first raised the prospect in his Summer Budget address, suggesting the imposition of the new tax on larger businesses, with the proceeds funding training schemes at smaller companies. CBI deputy director-general said: "A new levy won't be welcomed by business, so we want to see a new politically independent levy board setting the rate based on clear evidence with the funds ring-fenced." She went on to warn there is a "high risk" the move could "undermine the system, not strengthen it" at a time when firms are "already investing over £40bn a year on formal training and increasing apprenticeships". There has yet to be any detail released on the proposed rates, or the threshold at which firms would...
Party conferences put tax and business in spotlight
A round-up of the key points from 2015's party conference season THE SEASON of party conferences typically emphasises rhetoric above solid policy, and 2015 has not deviated too heavily from that trend. That said, some substantive moves were made on the tax and business front, stirring the lobby groups' commentators and press offices into life. The Conservatives, for their part, have drawn the ire of business over proposals to introduce an ‘apprenticeship levy'. Formal submissions sent to the government by the Confederation of British Industry (CBI), manufacturers' organisation the EEF, British Chambers of Commerce (BCC) and the Institute of Directors (IoD) call on the party to row back on the policy. The groups say the move could "undermine the system, not strengthen it" at a time when firms are "already investing over £40bn a year on formal training and increasing apprenticeships". George Osborne first raised the prospect in his Summer Budget address, suggesting the imposition of the new tax on larger businesses, with the proceeds funding training schemes at smaller companies. Alongside that, Osborne promised further devolution of tax powers to the UK's regions, allowing councils to retain business rates raised in their area and set their own business rates. Under...
Annual reports grow for sixth year in a row
The average UK annual report reaches 135 pages as growth in narrative offsets efforts to streamline financial statements ANNUAL reports of UK listed companies have grown in length for a sixth consecutive year, according to new research from Deloitte. This year the average UK annual report reached 135 pages, up three pages on last year - despite companies making positive inroads in ‘clear and concise' financial statements which dropped by an average of two pages. Front-end narrative reporting is driving the overall page increase, with non-GAAP alternative performance measures taking greater prominence. "There is a growing trend for companies to harness their annual report as a channel in conveying their story around strategy, culture and external impact. This storytelling is a key component of the strategic report and one companies are actively embracing," said Veronica Poole, partner and head of corporate reporting at Deloitte. According to Poole, 7% of the companies have either embraced integrated reporting, or are en route to do so. "This builds on the efforts of over half the companies who are now talking about a wider range of inputs and outputs as part of their business model in a move towards integrated thinking," she said. "The...
UK staff set for biggest pay rise boom in Europe
Average pay rises in Germany are expected to be closest to the UK level, at 2.9% BRITISH workers are set to enjoy a boom in real-terms pay increases in 2015 after several years of muted pay rises at or below the level of inflation. That's the bold claim from professional services oufit Towers Watson in its latest Salary Budget Planning Study. The study, primarily covering private sector companies, reveals that the average UK pay rise of 3%, coupled with record low annual inflation of 0.2%, will outstrip those enjoyed by workers in all other major European economies. Average pay rises in Germany are expected to be closest to the UK level, at 2.9% this year with slightly higher inflation of 0.6%. However companies in France, Spain, Italy, the Netherlands, Belgium, Ireland, Switzerland, Portugal and Greece have all budgeted for lower employee pay increases of between 2% and 2.6% this year. Paul Richards, head of Towers Watson's data services practice for EMEA said: "In 2015 many employees will feel the tide has turned. A combination of decent pay rises and record-low inflation means that British employees are starting to see a real rise in their income after years of frustration.The outlook...
UK recovery ‘motors ahead’ as GDP per head returns to pre-crisis levels
Growth accelerates to 0.7pc in second quarter, suggesting that slowdown at start of the year was just a blip Britain's recovery is "motoring ahead", the Chancellor declared on Tuesday, after official data showed faster growth in the second quarter pushed output per head back to pre-crisis levels. The pound rose against the dollar and euro after figures showed the UK economy expanded by 0.7pc in the three months to the end of June, following growth of 0.4pc in the first three months of 2015. Compared with the same quarter in 2014, the economy grew by 2.6pc, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS). George Osborne said the figures showed Britain was "motoring ahead", as the data suggested the recovery in the UK pulled even further ahead of Germany's in the second quarter. The Chancellor tweeted: "We must stay on road we've set out on." Joe Grice, chief economist at the ONS, said Tuesday's data meant gross domestic product (GDP) per head was now "broadly level with its pre-economic downturn peak" in the first quarter of 2008. The expansion in the second quarter was driven by Britain's dominant services sector, which accounts for more than three quarters of UK output....
What Are The Top 5 Things Business Owners Are Too Busy To Do?
1. Take a holiday! British workers said they did not take all of their annual leave allowance last year because their workload was too heavy to take the day(s) off. These findings are uncovered in a major new YouGov survey of British workers’ attitudes to holiday and absence commissioned by the business information services company, Wolters Kluwer in the UK.While 13% said they felt they couldn’t take the time off and 4% were worried what their work would think if they took off the day(s). 2. Pension Plan! According to Ms Tina Weeks, founder of Serenity Financial Planning in London, too many company directors and owners of small to medium-sized businesses were failing to plan for their retirement, and she said “their excuses cannot be justified”. With auto-enrolment staging dates for small and medium-sized companies on the horizon, Ronnie Taylor, pensions and investments director for Scottish Widows, agreed with Ms Weeks and Mr Imrie that bosses could not leave it to the last minute to get themselves, and their staff, ready. 3. Train Many business owners are training their staff but what about themselves? There are many online studies showing that there are a high percentage of leaders that need training...
IT Strategy: AI requires ethical programming
Despite our automated production lines, our computers, and the visible rise of robotics and artificial intelligence, we remain, by and large, relaxed about the prospect of any threat to us and our civilisation. Even the voices of scaremongers, pundits, experts and media columnists largely go unheeded. So should we be worried, or are we being sensibly sanguine? This topic was born of science fiction and the creation of the first automatons going back well over 100 years. It was amplified by the creations of Hollywood with HAL 9000 in the movie 2001 and T-800 in Terminator, so we might have expected the public to become increasingly paranoid, but it would appear that this only afflicts ‘the experts’. Where, then, does reality lie? It would be foolish to think that we can design out all the risks and likelihood of unexpected behaviours. But this appears to be the mission and grand design of those focused on ‘ethical programming’. To date we have constructed automated production lines with scant regard for Asimov’s Laws of Robotics, and we have engineered autonomous weapon systems designed to maximise human deaths. However, the reality is that laws, design bounds and ethical standards cannot protect us against...