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9am Lowdown: HMRC tax avoidance demands up to £250m

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22nd Oct 2014
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It's officially midway through the week! Let's celebrate with a celebratory desk dance and skimming over five of the day's stories. Today's lowdown was co-compiled by editor John Stokdyk, who is currently in sunny San Jose, California. 

HMRC tax avoidance demands up to £250m

Over 600 of the Revenue's accelerated payment notices have been sent to tax avoidance scheme users, demanding a combined total of £250m.

And although users have 90 days to get in touch with HMRC, arrangements have already been made to repay £25m.

* * * 

Time to talk to your Slacker clients?

Generation X - the label for those born between 1965 and 1980 - has been “given a pretty bad rap”, writes Holly Nicholas Signorelli on our sister site AccountingWEB.com. “They are known for having more education than any other generation, but also making less money, having almost no savings by the time they are forty, and having an overall sense of unhappiness when it comes to their jobs.”

If you have clients on the edge of a mid-life crisis and worrying about their financial futures, Signorelli offers some useful suggestions to get them get over it and focusing on preparing for the future. Her focus is on wealth management, but if this isn’t enough of a stretch for your terms of engagement, she says, “Sometimes we play counsellor to our clients.”

* * * 

Is the UK really that far behind in the cloud?

AccountingWEB editor John Stokdyk is in San Jose this week to hear about the launch of QuickBooks Online Accountant. The cloud software features several important client management enhancements, including access controls to limit which accounts staff can  see.

The developer was reluctant to name launch dates, but it shouldn't be too far away according to UK managing director Rich Preece. However he raised some eyebrows by suggesting only 4-5% of UK accountants use the cloud effectively. On AccountingWEB.co.uk, at least, the number is closer to 50%.

* * *

Osborne to miss deficit targets

The Chancellor is set to miss the targets as government public borrowing jumped this year, according to the Telegraph and ONS figures.

* * * 

"Darn you auto enrolment latecomers" - advisers

According to Now:Pensions research, almost three-quarters of employers are coming to them for auto enrolment advice too late or too close to their staging date. 

Time to step in, accountants?

Rather than a thought for the day, in honour of John's trip to San Jose, we leave you with this. Enjoy!

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