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9am Lowdown: Taxman to migrate to the cloud

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8th Jun 2015
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Good morning and a fine Monday to you all. Here’s your morning update.

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Taxman to migrate to the cloud

HMRC seems to have cast its vote in the Microsoft office/Google apps debate.

The Revenue has indicated it will be moving away from Microsoft and towards Google Apps for document sharing and collaboration.

The department confirmed it had spent the past six months trying out services from the tech giant, such as Google Drive, Google Hangouts and Google Docs.

This will make it one of the biggest government departments to move away from Microsoft. It also means that some of the department’s documents will be stored in the cloud on Google’s external servers offshore.

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Questions abound over KPMG’s FIFA dealings

KPMG’s reputation continues to take a kicking after it was revealed that the firm gave the corruption addled FIFA the financial all clear for 16 straight years.

Greg Dyke, head of the FA, was the latest to criticise FIFA’s auditor. “Someone should go to the auditors,” said Dyke. “Hang on, where did that come from and go to? Where is it in accounts? Did you know about this?”

For their part, KPMG have remained schtum. A spokesperson for KPMG Switzerland told the press that the firm does not comment on current clients.

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Regulator appoints two big-wigs

The FCA has appointed Mark Steward as its new director of enforcement and market oversight and Barbara Frohn as the new director of risk and compliance oversight.

Steward is currently the head of enforcement at the Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission, and Frohn is managing director of Banco Santander and currently on secondment to the Institute of International Finance in Washington, D.C.

Both will be expected to take up their new roles in London by the early autumn.

“These are two vital roles within the UK regulatory system and it says a lot about the FCA that we have been able to attract such high calibre candidates to fill them,” said Martin Wheatley, chief executive of the FCA. “Mark and Barbara have built up excellent reputations for their work in financial services across the globe, and I am delighted they have chosen to bring their experience to the FCA.”

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On this day

On this day in 632, Muhammad, the prophet of Islam, died in Medina. 

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By MattG
08th Jun 2015 11:05

Kicking and and screaming into the century of the fruitbat.....

"The Revenue has indicated it will be moving away from Microsoft and towards Google Apps for document sharing and collaboration."

And yet for us agents and "customers" there is still so much that you can't request/communicate by email, or messages sent via a secure portal and must resort to sitting on hold, or sending snail mail...

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By Melody
10th Jun 2015 17:26

Do HMRC plan to put UK taxpayer data on a US company's servers?
If all HMRC stores on Google's servers is their own guidance (which I find much harder to search successfully for what I want since it migrated to gov.uk) then fair enough.

If they are planning to hold any details of UK residents' and businesses' tax affairs on servers belonging to a US company then I am very worried indeed!

We have already seen plenty of cases where US authorities believe they have jurisdiction over actions carried out in other countries, and I am sure they would not hesitate to subpoena a US registered company like Google to pass on any confidential info held on British citizens if they felt it was in their interpretation of US interests.

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