There is a palpable relaxation of tension across the UK economy as the political uncertainties of 2019 are finally resolved. We now have a government with a working majority. Aside from resolving the Brexit hiatus there is much catching-up to do, not least the presentation of the much delayed budget,... read more →

Whatever your political point of view there is no denying that 2020 will likely be a challenging year for professional advisers. As we detach from the EU, supply chain issues and price adjustments to reflect changing terms of trade with Europe will impact UK business profits and net worth. There... read more →

You can be sure that companies offering cloud accounting solutions are rigorous in backing up their users’ data; after all, if they had a major system crash and lost all of their customers’ data they would be out of business. But does that mean that users can relax and ignore... read more →

What an extraordinary result for the Conservatives. Die-hard Labour supporters voting for the Blues for the first time. For readers who missed our post last week we have copied in what can be expected in the new government’s first Budget – expected early February 2020 – and we can expect... read more →

In the world of electronics, the phrase “in the loop” has a logical function. For example, if A is true do X, if A is false do Y. In the 1960s this phrase was adopted to aircraft control systems, and in particular, when should the pilot be bought back into... read more →

Readers of this post will probably be aware of the December election results – this post was written the day before the election. What can we expect? Here’s a quick summary of what the two main parties have promised to enact from a tax point of view. It remains to... read more →

Ever wondered how long it would take to crack your online passwords? Unfortunately, this can be automated by nerd-like characters setting in motion decryption software that can wade through endless iterations of keyboard characters in nanoseconds (this is one thousand millionth of a second). If you want to test the... read more →

To demonstrate just how held-back government activity has become it is worth scanning news and press releases issued by the Treasury/HMRC in recent weeks. In November 2019, there were six posts in the “Money” section. It is possible to imagine Whitehall mandarins scratching their heads as their political bosses frantically... read more →

Past governments – from both sides of the House - would no doubt be amazed to learn that their convoluted tax code is now conspiring to produce weighty tax charges. The highest published rate of tax is the additional rate of Income Tax. At 45% it pips Inheritance Tax at... read more →

HMRC published a news item on the gov.uk website last week. As this was related to client tax issues we published reference to this update on our newsfeed. There are reports that: “Over the last year, HMRC received nearly 900,000 reports from the public about suspicious HMRC contact – phone calls, texts or emails.... read more →