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Monthly Archives: May 2007

Does the ICAEW understand reporting?

31-May-07

I mentioned recently that the ICAEW had issued a report called ‘Reporting with Integrity’. In it they said:

there’s no clear and accepted understanding of what [integrity] means in practice

Which gives little confidence in the progress accountants have made in more than 100 years of their professional existence.
There’s worse in the report though. Put simply the […]

The IASB misses the point on small company accounting

30-May-07

I’ve been writing about the inappropriateness of accounting standards that have been established for smaller enterprises in the UK and elsewhere for more than a decade now. Usually my approach has been based on two arguments. The first is that the UK standard, (the Financial Reporting Standard for Small Entities) has in all its forms […]

KPMG Switzerland - adding up the wrong numbers

29-May-07

I’ve just come across a report from KPMG Switzerland:

Given the much-debated issue of taxation in Switzerland, KPMG conducted a survey of all cantonal tax offices to find out how many people were subject to lump-sum taxation and what proportion of overall tax revenue they paid.

They discovered:
as net contributors, people subject to lump-sum taxation pay as […]

Andrew Dilnot thinks small businesses are bad businesses

29-May-07

Andrew Dilnot was director of the Institute of Fiscal Studies for many years. Now he’s Principal of St Hugh’s College Oxford and the university’s pro-Vice Chancellor.
This evening he made a complete fool of himself as the after dinner speaker at the Oxford Centre for Business Taxation’s dinner. He took it upon himself to address his […]

ATTAC Jersey

25-May-07

No, I’m not asking you to get aggressive.
But you may want to look at the May Newsletter of TJN’s partner in Jersey, called ATTAC.
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Jersey - trying to have it both ways

25-May-07

This week Jersey has tried to be all thing to all people. First it tells the US Senate how compliant its finance industry. Then it bangs it’s drum about winning the ‘Offshore Finance Centre of the Year Award’. Look at this stuff from the associated press release:

In winning the prestigious award, Jersey beat off competition […]

JITSIC is growing

25-May-07

If you don’t know JITSIC is the Joint International Tax Shelter Information Centre. There has been one of these to date, in Washington. Now it is growing. The following press release was issued by HMRC this week:

The Commissioners of the Australian, Canadian, UK and US tax administrations have decided to open a second JITSIC centre […]

Shareholder opposition to IFRS 8 is global

24-May-07

The International Corporate Governance Network has expressed its concern about IFRS 8. It has said in a letter that:

IFRS 8 as currently drafted carries a heavy implication that management processes and decisions alone are sufficient to secure sufficiency in financial reporting.
By specifically referring to management, rather than boards, IFRS 8 is perhaps as much a […]

Falling off the hedge

24-May-07

You can tell there’s a financial crisis coming. The world is so awash with cash that the FT reports that:

A hedge fund investing in old violins has been pledged $11m (£5.5m) in the latest sign of investor willingness to put money into offbeat assets that were previously the exclusive domain of collectors and enthusiasts.
Florian Leonhard, […]

KPMG - missing the point on international fraud

24-May-07

In an age when criminals can digitally flash stolen money and intellectual property across the globe in an instant, corporations are often ill-prepared to investigate fraud or misconduct quickly if it occurs in a country other than where they are headquartered.
So says KPMG in a press release issued yesterday. They go on to say:
In a […]

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