2010 quotes of the year
The key soundbites that summed up a dramatic year on AccountingWEB.co.uk. For senior executives of HMRC in particular, it was not one they'll want to repeat.
"Employers should make clear to employees that they should not risk life and limb to get to work, and be understanding if employees need to leave early to avoid getting stranded unnecessarily on their way home – particularly if conditions worsen during the working day."
Some commonsense advice from Rebecca Clarke of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development in January's 'Bad weather business survival kit'.
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"More consideration and explanation needs to be given to the impact of the proposals on the accounting needs of small businesses, their accountants and users."
HMRC Commissioners' advisory accountant, Matt Blake, is the unlikely voice of reason in responses to the ASB's proposals for a three-tier approach to converging FRSSE with international standards which, he argued, will create a larger divide than currently exists between FRSSE small business accounts and non-FRSSE small business accounts - 8 February.
"Why are these discussions always led by the big boys (PwC etc.) who have probably NEVER dealt with the small companies which the bulk of the practising members of the profession are concerned with? They have absolutely no understanding or empathy with our concerns, absolutely zero! Does anyone represent us? Does anyone know of the needs or concerns of our 'micro' clients regarding the layout of the financial statements and whether the proposed IFRS would mean anything at all to them? Try consulting the end-users for a change before lumbering them with providing information and disclosures which are totally nonsensical to them!"
- AccountingWEB.co.uk member Carl Rogers makes a similar point in more robust terms.
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"Apple and its CEO Steve Jobs have cultivated a reputation for innovation, but for once the centre of attention appears to be less of a visionary paradigm-breaker than an engineering cut-and-paste job rushed out to gain a foothold in what looks to be the next hot spot for hardware manufacturers. To these eyes at least, the iPad appears to be aiming at a gap that doesn't need filling."
AccountingWEB.co.uk editor John Stokdyk demonstrates an uncanny knack for getting technology predictions wrong with this put down of Apple's phenomenally successful iPad tablet in February.
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"I feel that the CEO had been getting his ducks in a row for some time - possibly since the liaison between #1 and East... It appears that #1 was given little support in her role and when a mistake was made there was a complete overreaction and any authority that she had was effectively taken away. Maybe the other 2 in the department took advantage of this? Sorry CEO, I sort of admire your honesty in your blog, but you have gone down in my estimation as a manager and a person."
An anonymous member comments on February's finance department coup, as documented in our CEO's Diary.
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"You must submit your VAT Return online and pay your VAT electronically... even if:
- you don't own or have access to a computer with links to the internet,
- you lack computer skills,
- you disagree in principle with compulsory online filing."
The Practitioner Diarist says it's "nice to see the customer-friendly side of the old Customs and Excise coming out" in the guidance notes for compulsory online VAT filing - 9 February.
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"We are promised that by the end of 2011 a business will be able to see all its tax liabilities etc. in one place online. I think there is a special category for promises based on IT (pre-broken, perhaps). The same may be true for the promises about high speed broadband... Overall, there was no harm done to small business, and some improvements - but we know that we will have to wait for somebody's Finance Act No. 2 for this year, and with the election out of the way they may not have to be nice to us."
Simon Sweetman on 'Pleasant Budget surprises for SMEs' - 24 March.
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Election special
Q: "As an accountant, what influence does your professional training have on your political activity?"
A: "The very first thing my FD taught me was the adage - profit is vanity, balance is sanity, cash is reality! I passed that onto people who I worked with. We all know that tax and accounting methodology should not be the driver of a business but fundamentally cash is the bottomline. In politics, government spending or investment cannot and should not always be about generating an IRR but with restricted resources, you often have to make choices and be looking to get the best bang for your buck."
Conservative candidate for Suffolk, Therese Coffey.
A: "My training as an accountant and my work at PwC has made a huge contribution to my effectiveness as an MP and member of the Conservatives' Treasury team... I can look at tax policy from a business perspective and understand the challenges businesses would face in implementation. I can also see how private sector techniques could be applied to cutting wasteful public spending without damaging front line public services."
Mark Hoban, Conservative MP for Fareham, appointed Financial Secretary to the Treasury after the election.
A: "This election is all about spending and being able to read a balance sheet is certainly helpful when you are seeking to represent the City of London. I can talk to business in their language on their terms."
Naomi Smith, unsuccessful Lib Dem candidate for the Cities of London & Westminster, who has returned to her day job as head of research for CIMA.
A: "I feel that my accountancy training gives me excellent analytical skills and has made me keep a pragmatic head. My audit training ensures that I can cut through political spin!"
Rob Deeks, Labour candidate for Christchurch. He also lost.
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"The Accountant Party ended the night ahead, but with a tinge of disappointment... A net gain of three new accountants should inject a bit more financial expertise at Westminster, but leaves us wondering what might have happened if a few more of the private battles had gone our way."
Coalition, what coalition? The individual races of more than 50 accountant candidates kept us up until the early hours on election night compiling an analysis of how they fared - 6 May.
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"I had a bittersweet reaction. For me it was just a huge relief knowing that the appeal and all the anxiety that went with it was over. Hopefully nobody will have to go through this again and this will be one case that works in favour of [IR35] being dropped. Maybe I'm dreaming, but it's not something you'd wish on anyone."
IT contractor Novac Brankjovic is still optimistic after fighting and winning an IR35 appeal after eight years - 11 May.
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"This Budget is needed to deal with our country's debts. This Budget is needed to give confidence to our economy. This is the unavoidable Budget. I am not going to hide hard choices from the British people or bury them in the small print of the Budget documents. You're going to hear them straight from me, here in this speech. Our policy is to raise from the ruins of an economy built on debt a new, balanced economy where we save, invest and export."
George Osborne's maiden Budget speech - 22 June.
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"This is a major development towards a more policy-driven approach to tax. We haven't got simplification yet, but that can come if they think about tax policy in the right way."
AccountingWEB.co.uk tax editor Rebecca Benneyworth welcomed the plans set out in the Treasury white paper setting out government's new approach to tax policy making including the creation an Office for Tax Simplification.
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"It's got to be the time for people to move away from Excel for final accounts production. Producing accounts with a spreadsheet is so inefficient. I appreciate that people want to customise things and are already familiar with Excel, but it's not an ideal tool for doing this... There's a lot of redundant data entry if you're using tax and accounts software from different places. In the longer term if everything was good quality XBRL, it could open up the world of mix and match software again. But that's a while away.”
iXBRL pioneer David Forbes explains the implications of HMRC's requirement for CT600 accounts and computations to be filed in the inline XBRL format - 23 June.
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"Apart from any questions of mismanagement that might have occurred, I think the level of administrative overhead was far too high for a business of Vantis's size. There were just too many people in areas such as HR, marketing, PR and IT who whilst, individually, were no doubt valued employees and went about their tasks conscientiously, they added little or no value to the business itself. However you fix it, 2 + 2 will not equal 5 - and if you try to squeeze more profit than the business can possibly generate, it is going to fail."
Vanits veteran Richard Messik probes the underlying factors for the demise of the top 20 consolidator - 12 July.
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"Just like Arctic Systems, it looks like HMRC has picked a case it was almost certain to lose in the end. Not that it's any comfort to the years of suffering inflicted upon the poor taxpayers at the time. There must be many other cases HMRC could choose (assuming their husband and wife assetless IT contractor model was realistic) which would fall over much more easily. Is a vainglorious belief that if they win a difficult one, all the easy ones will fold like a house of cards, or are they just very bad a picking their fights?"
Nick Graves comments on the verdict of Patmore v HMRC settlements case - August.
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"Evidence from the initial operation of the new service suggests that the Department did not fully appreciate the extent of risk from data inaccuracies or its implications for the delivery of PAYE... The Department found that the new service had produced significantly more amended tax codes than expected, with the potential to generate up to 25.8 million coding notices, almost double the amount anticipated. A significant number of the codes generated were incorrect."
An NAO report on HMRC's 2009-10 accounts examines in embarrassing detail the IT mishaps that mushroomed into September's PAYE code furore.
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"HMRC hasn't been fit for purpose for a very long time. It's is now at melting point. We don't have the staff we need, we don't have the resources we need and the computer systems we use are atrocious."
Anonymous officer, who has worked at the department for 10 years, pours out her heart to BBC's Andrew Hoskin about HMRC's internal meltdown - 9 September.
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MP: "You've been closing offices, losing staff and very low staff morale. You're dysfunctional."
Dame Leslie Strathie: "They put a high value on work they do and are very dedicated in what they do. Many do a very tough job on behalf of the company... It is demoralising if you look at amount of change the organisation has had to go through. At end of the day, technology offers a much more efficient way of doing the job. The old system of people having tax records in different parts of the country was part of the problem that this new system cures."
MP: "Will you be able to cope in the next four years with fewer staff?"
Strathie: "It is my view the organisation has been resourced properly for the job ahead."
The HMRC chief executive answers Public Accounts Committee questions on office closures and quality of service - 15 September.
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"George Osborne clearly wants me to invest. It would be good to do so. But frankly, I think we will be doing a little modest repackaging of existing product, and not a lot more. If he's looking to me to be his economic salvation, he'd better start looking elsewhere."
A little bit of politics from the CEO in a 21 October diary entry entitled, 'Don't look to me for your salvation'.
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