Over at TaxationWEB I voice my concern over HM Revenue & Customs’ sweeping programme of local office closures and staff reductions.
As I conclude:
Let’s face reality: local is good. Please stop these closures.
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I missed a letter in the FT last week from Lord Wallace of Saltaire, the Lib Dem peer and former LSE academic. He said (and I have edited a little):
The “anger and alarm” from British-based multinationals you report (”Darling in U-turn on foreign profits tax“, July 21) concerning Treasury proposals for corporate taxation should not [...]
Deputy Geoff Southern is one of Jersey’s political opposition. It’s a brave thing to be.
He has a fascinating letter in today’s Jersey Evening Post. He says:
As a rule of thumb, wealthy residents can expect to pay 20% on their first £1m of (declared) Jersey income; 1% on the next £1m and 0.5% on the rest.
We [...]
I expect to find File of 4 on Tuesday 15 July very interesting. The trailer says:
Profits before poverty?In 1948, the post-war Labour Government set up the Colonial Development Corporation, a tax-payers’ fund to promote industry and agriculture in the poorest parts of the Empire.
Sixty years on, today’s Labour Government denies suggestions that it wants to [...]
AccountingWEB (amongst others) has reported that the Tories have issued a press release saying:
A report by a working group headed up by ex-chancellor Lord Howe has suggested the establishment an Office of Tax Simplification (OTS) to examine the existing tax code and make proposals for simplification. As well as being staffed by HMRC and academia, [...]
There was an extraordinary piece of information in the Observer newspaper on Sunday. It was noted with regard to equity investors that:
Retail investors have voted with their feet. According to the Investment Management Association, more people have cashed in their Isa equities savings plans than taken out new ones in each year since 2004, despite [...]
The Guardian has reported that:
The shadow chancellor, George Osborne, yesterday promised a radical reform of fuel duty that would have given motorists an immediate cut of between 5p and 6p a litre on the price of petrol at current rates.
The Conservatives say they would introduce what they call a “fair fuel stabiliser”, which would mean [...]
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I attended the first hearing of the Treasury Select Committee on Offshore Financial Centres this morning. It was to this committee that we submitted Tax Havens: Creating Turmoil.
The session started well when John McFall, the committee chairman, quoting from Creating Turmoil, as referred to in the Observer on Sunday, asked the panel their first question, [...]
It has been reported that:
HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) has named private equity executive Mike Clasper as its new chairman.
He replaces Paul Gray, who quit after an embarrassing scandal that saw the HMRC lose the personal details of 25 million child benefit claimants.
Taking up the post on 1 August, he will be responsible for overseeing [...]
Terry Cook - the newly appointed President of the Association of Revenue and Customs (ARC) - has called for increased resources to counter the threat of highly experienced staff being lost to the private sector and to enhance the counter tax evasion work of HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC). ARC is the union representing senior [...]
