With Valentine's Day coming up very soon, what should the astute business man or woman be thinking about.
Perhaps taking some time off on Saturday after the morning round of golf? I am told this would go down very well.
If you are thinking about a gift for someone special, is there any chance of some tax relief?
The tax rules do say that conspicuous advertising on a gift should mean it is tax deductible (providing it is not food or drink or tobacco or a voucher you can exchange for goods). You may need to find something more than an office pen, but don't go too wild as there is an upper limit of £50 in the legislation.
In these difficult times, you could consider offering that someone a job. They would have to work for you to justify the salary, but they may already be helping in the business anyway. Do be careful you pay them enough to avoid worries about the national minimum wage.
If the relationship has already moved on to marriage or civil partnership, you can be much more generous, since gifts are tax-free. But you may want to think a little longer before giving away part of your business - your other half may not always be entitled to the capital gains tax reliefs you will get when you do decide to move the business on and retire.
You could go for the more usual options - dinner, chocolates, a show - just don't try to put them through the books though as the Taxman has heard about romantic gestures.
Friday, 13 February 2009
Congratulations to the VAT man
No, I am not being serious!
This month's VAT return comes with a set of notes about changes to rules which taxpayers may need to be careful about.
One of these (item 9) tells us that if we export services to which the reverse charge applies, we will have to produce EC sales lists from January 2010. A quick look at the EC Sales List page doesn't mention the change at all, so there is no help from there.
The notes say that more information is available in Business Brief 53/08. Sadly not much more information. It tells you how the change in rules has come about and that you will have to comply with the new rules, but not how to find out what they are.
Looking up reverse charge tells you about some complications, but not the basics. It also tells you that different EC countries apply different rules - so here is another point of possible confusion - as the reverse charge is going to be applied by your customer in another country, do you need to find out about the rules in his country or do you apply the UK rules (which obviously don't apply as the supply is being made to someone outside the UK).
The answer - will have to wait for another day.
This month's VAT return comes with a set of notes about changes to rules which taxpayers may need to be careful about.
One of these (item 9) tells us that if we export services to which the reverse charge applies, we will have to produce EC sales lists from January 2010. A quick look at the EC Sales List page doesn't mention the change at all, so there is no help from there.
The notes say that more information is available in Business Brief 53/08. Sadly not much more information. It tells you how the change in rules has come about and that you will have to comply with the new rules, but not how to find out what they are.
Looking up reverse charge tells you about some complications, but not the basics. It also tells you that different EC countries apply different rules - so here is another point of possible confusion - as the reverse charge is going to be applied by your customer in another country, do you need to find out about the rules in his country or do you apply the UK rules (which obviously don't apply as the supply is being made to someone outside the UK).
The answer - will have to wait for another day.
Thursday, 12 February 2009
HBOS's Boss
The recent media coverage of the resignation of Sir James Crosby from his role as deputy chairman of the FSA does raise a lot of questions.
In principle turning a poacher into a gamekeeper can be a good idea, because poachers know how to beat the system. But there appear to be worries that the system did not need any beating - you could just ignore the FSA in those days.
Then there is the other view that most bank chairmen are being held to account for the way they ran their banks back in the early 2000's but Sir James was escaping this criticism.
But the most worrying is that we still do not seem to know what went wrong and how to avoid it in the future.
HBOS did have a system for managing risk - there was a least one person in the department, because he, Paul Moore, was sacked in 2005 for blowing the whistle on the level of risks he thought were being taken. His view seems to be confirmed by the fact that the FSA had warned HBOS about its lack of risk management infrastructure back in 2002, 2004 and 2006 (see the BBC article).
The issue - the banks did not seem to grasp how much of a risk they were taking with the banking system as a whole. They appear to have seen profit opportunities without considering the maxim "if it looks too good to be true, it probably is." So how do we avoid such problems in the future? Perhaps we can put in safeguards to avoid the same problem happening again, but I am not sure we can change human nature - the profit-seeking which overrode the caution that bank managers used to show when anyone asked them for money! Come back Mr Mainwaring, all is forgiven!
In principle turning a poacher into a gamekeeper can be a good idea, because poachers know how to beat the system. But there appear to be worries that the system did not need any beating - you could just ignore the FSA in those days.
Then there is the other view that most bank chairmen are being held to account for the way they ran their banks back in the early 2000's but Sir James was escaping this criticism.
But the most worrying is that we still do not seem to know what went wrong and how to avoid it in the future.
HBOS did have a system for managing risk - there was a least one person in the department, because he, Paul Moore, was sacked in 2005 for blowing the whistle on the level of risks he thought were being taken. His view seems to be confirmed by the fact that the FSA had warned HBOS about its lack of risk management infrastructure back in 2002, 2004 and 2006 (see the BBC article).
The issue - the banks did not seem to grasp how much of a risk they were taking with the banking system as a whole. They appear to have seen profit opportunities without considering the maxim "if it looks too good to be true, it probably is." So how do we avoid such problems in the future? Perhaps we can put in safeguards to avoid the same problem happening again, but I am not sure we can change human nature - the profit-seeking which overrode the caution that bank managers used to show when anyone asked them for money! Come back Mr Mainwaring, all is forgiven!
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