Yet more evidence has come to light that the UK’s Crown Dependencies’ main role in life is to steal tax revenue that rightfully belongs to other states. This time the Manhattan District Attorney, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the US Internal Revenue Service (IRS) are jointly probing a tax-shelter plan run out of
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I’m working on this year’s Mind the Tax Gap at the moment. That’s an analysis of the tax paid by the top 50 companies in the UK. I admit that collecting the data is dull. tedious work which has also to be right. One of the opportunities this is giving me is the chance to
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Jason Holden is proving to be a regular, and welcome reader of this blog. But I want to pick up on something he said in a comment yesterday (and I stress, I paraphrase for emphasis): The Aussies … can’t understand that once you have acquired assets over your lifetime out of already taxed income that
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There’s a good discussion at AccManPro on ethical consulting practice, so I won’t reproduce it here. Suffice to say, this gives a flavour: Which leaves me with a question for professional accountants. If you’re not taught the fundamentals of integrity and ethics as a practical discipline based on solid theoretical grounds, then what value is
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The Australian seems to have summed tax planning up quite nicely: The essence of tax planning is that a lawyer will fly close to the wind, invoke the letter and the loophole of the law, if you like, to maximise the interest of the client. And this in an article entitled Tax planners become an
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I recently mentioned Quaker business principles here, which are something I know a bit about. So it was good to note that Accountancy Age have picked up the theme. Lets set the context. Cadbury’s (once one of the great Quaker companies) have lost a case with the Revenue in which they sought to Cadbury use
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Not everything on this site is as funny as those who write it might think, but some is very good. I couldn’t resist this. Those in the profession have met one…..

The following message has been sent to me from the office of Senator Carl Levin in the USA, via Bill Fant at Citizens for Tax Justice: The Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations has scheduled a hearing for August 1, 2006, entitled Offshore Abuses: The Enablers, The Tools & Offshore Secrecy. The Subcommittee has held a number
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I like a post by Mark Lee on his blog about the questions an accountant should ask their client when preparing their accounts. He’s right – but Mark is a good accountant. And what he says is that if judgments need to be made, the client should be involved. Now you would think that is
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