Save content
Have you found this content useful? Use the button above to save it to your profile.
Lowdown
AccountingWEB

9am Lowdown: MPs blame Sir Philip for BHS collapse

by
25th Jul 2016
Save content
Have you found this content useful? Use the button above to save it to your profile.

Good morning and welcome to the 9am Lowdown featuring updates on BHS, an HMRC tax demand blunder and HMRC cleaners going on strike.

MPs blame Sir Philip for BHS collapse

A new report from MPs has found Sir Philip Green extracted large sums from BHS and left the business on "life support".

The report added Sir Philip’s failure to resolve BHS' £571m pension deficit was a major factor in the organisation's demise.

Last month Sir Philip vowed he would sort out the pensions situation and said he had invested £800m in BHS during his 15-year ownership to try and turn it around.

MP Frank Field singled out Sir Philip for particular blame for the collapse of the company, reported the BBC.

* * *

HMRC in tax demand blunder

HMRC paid out £1.9m in compensation after sending a firm bankrupt with a tax demand that was wrong.

According to the Daily Mail, the blunder has been disclosed in the business' annual report and accounts.

The Revenue wrote off £120m last year after scaling back efforts to recover overpaid tax credits, according to the document.

The HMRC accounts show that it made a “special payment” of £1.9m last year. The document said the sum was paid “under an HMRC undertaking to court in respect of damages suffered”.

The report also said: “HMRC applied for and were granted a provisional liquidation order against a company by the High Court, which was then subsequently wound up.

“The duty and VAT assessments on which the action was based were later withdrawn by HMRC and so the action found to be unjustified, with compensation then paid as a result.”

* * *

HMRC cleaners strike over pay

Workers employed by ISS to clean HMRC buildings in Merseyside are going on strike today in a battle to be paid the National Living Wage.

Up to 30 workers employed to clean the buildings via a subcontracting chain argue they are no better off despite the rise in mandatory hourly rate, which from April guaranteed workers £7.20 an hour, because their employer offset the increase by cutting their hours, according to The Guardian.

Martin Kelsey, PCS group secretary, said ISS had made, “cynical mathematical calculations to avoid allowing some of their lowest paid workers the meagre benefit arising from the new NLW”.

HMRC, the government department responsible for enforcing the NLW, said ​the pay of cleaners in its offices was not its responsibility.

Tags:

Replies (0)

Please login or register to join the discussion.

There are currently no replies, be the first to post a reply.