Accountancy Age report that:

Richard Fleck, chairman of the Auditing Practices Board, told a committee that, while annual financial statements are an important source of information to investors, their relative importance has probably declined during the past 20 years, 'and will probably continue to decline in the next 20'.

He's right. No one reads them. They're boilerplate.

Just give me HM Revenue & Customs' tax risk assessment. That will tell me all I want to know about a company: who are taking risks I do or do not want to share, who are ethical and who are not. That's the basis for a whole investment strategy.

Now I know HMRC can't publish these. But companies, even after the OFR debacle, are required to publish risk related information. I think disclosure of this ranking should be mandatory for listed companies.

Anyone agree?