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Monthly Archives: May 2007

Charitable status

21-May-07

The Church of Scientology has, according to the Express, filed accounts claiming it does not owe tax as it has charitable status.
It has not got that status. The UK refused to grant it.
True it made a loss. But with almost £7 million in the bank it must have had a significant interest income. The organisation [...]

Filed in Ethics, Tax management | | Comments (1) »

Education

21-May-07

My wife and I were discussing education at the weekend. This is part of the commonplace parental obsession with the subject, but also focused on our mutual interest in the role of the professions in this process. My wife is a GP medic. We came to the conclusion that much of our current system of [...]

Filed in Accounting | | Comments (2) »

The ludicrous logic of IFRS 8

18-May-07

IFRS 8 is the IASB standard on segment reporting on which I have been campaigning for longer than I now care to remember.
IFRS 8 is only the standard it is because the IASB insisted on adopting the 1997 US standard known as SFAS 131 on segment reporting, altering just a couple of words in the [...]

Filed in Accounting, Ethics, IFRS 8 | | Comments (1) »

Wolfowitz goes

18-May-07

I’ve said before. I won’t gloat.
Wolfowitz has gone from the World Bank. That had to be.
Now it’s time for a proper process of appointing a replacement to be agreed upon and used, quickly.
That also has to be.

Filed in Corruption, Economics, Ethics | | Comments (0) »

US looking to hit avoidance hard?

18-May-07

The US is focusing heavily on its ‘tax gap’ - the sum of at least $345 billion it does not collect in tax a year, but should.
One of the latest proposals is featured in Bloomberg:
U.S. lawmakers, searching for new sources of revenue, are reviving a proposal that would impose penalties on tax-saving financial transactions that [...]

Filed in Accounting, Tax compliance, Tax management | | Comments (0) »

A race to the bottom is not the answer

18-May-07

The Chief Executive of the London Stock Exchange, Clara Furse, has had a rant about taxation. According to Accountancy Age she said:
We (public companies) are double taxed on both dividends and stamp duty. They [private equity] are using debt on which they can write off the tax. There is an unintended policy distortion that the [...]

Filed in Economics, Ethics, Tax management | | Comments (1) »

The Tax Justice agenda is catching on

18-May-07

There’s a blog with this title at TJN. Well worth reading.

Filed in Development, Tax Justice Network | | Comments (0) »

Jersey - seeking to defer the fateful day

18-May-07

The Jersey Evening Post has reported that two hospitals on Jersey are to be sold for development.
The States is facing a deficit of around £100 million a year when it introduces 0/10 tax. The only way to plug the gap in the short term is to sell the family silver. Attempts to make savings have [...]

Filed in Jersey | | Comments (0) »

Tax investigations (again)

18-May-07

Dennis Howlett has followed up my blog on tax investigations with some more sound advice.
I have to reiterate his first point. Avoiding investigation altogether by keeping good records, being honestly and openly accountable and by being tax compliant is the best policy for anyone and any organisation.
It seems so obvious.

Filed in Accounting, Tax management | | Comments (0) »

Tax investigations

17-May-07

AccountingWEB has been a having a discussion of tax investigations. This is topical. The UK’s ‘tax amnesty’ will give rise to a fair number, either because the Revenue do not accept voluntary disclosures, or because people who choose not to disclose now will be forced to do so sometime soon.
It seems to me, based on [...]

Filed in Amnesty, Richard Murphy, Tax management | | Comments (4) »