Good morning., here is this morning's 9am Lowdown.
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Adele repays HMRC after dividends mistake
Singer Adele has paid more than £2.5m to HMRC after her accountant realised she had accidentally overpaid herself.
The Chasing pavements singer is the sole director of the companies Melted Stone Ltd and Melted Publishing, where she is paid her salary through dividends. According to The Sun report, which used the headline ‘Chasing payments’, Adele collected £7m from one of the firms, which is over the allowed limit.
Adele’s spokesperson told The Sun: “All relevant disclosures have been made in the company accounts. As clearly stated within the report, the position has been resolved.”
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Accountant causes bookmaker fine
An accountant who stole more than £850,000 from the company where he worked deceived bookmaker Betfred into believing he was a wealthy professional gambler.
According to the Yorkshire Post, Matthew Stevens duped the bookmaker by showing ‘suspicious looking bank statements’. The Gambling Commission has chastised Betfred for failing to ask further questions, and failing to meet its anti-money laundering responsibilities.
The Gambling commission has hit Betfred with a £800,000 penalty, ordering the firm to pay £443,000 to victims of criminal activities and £344,500 t0 socially responsible causes.
Stevens was sentenced in January for three years and four months.
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Accountex video of the day
In this morning’s video, AVN founder Steve Pipe talks about the challenges facing accountants looking to achieve a work life balance.
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What’s new on AccountingWEB
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