Half of UK adults will not be buying a gift or even a card for their loved one on Valentine’s Day, research from PwC shows, but the average spend on tokens of love is still expected to rise 12% to a £459m total in 14 February, with some of it heading the way of finance professionals after a separate survey by software provider Xero found Brits would rather date an accountant than a personal trainer

A Scottish wholesale potato merchant, who falsely inflated his businesses expenses by 2,000% in order to claim £160,000 in VAT repayments, has been jailed for two and a half years following an HMRC investigation

The corporate governance and reporting requirements for public listed companies should be extended to private companies to try to avert another BHS debacle, including large private companies with over 5,000 defined benefit pension scheme members, say MPs on the work and pensions committee

Applications are open to become the UK’s first small business commissioner, a high profile role supporting small businesses in payment disputes with their larger customers, which forms part of government initiatives to tackle late payment issues

The director of a company engaged in cold call marketing has been disqualified for seven years for failing to keep adequate accounting records, after an Insolvency Service investigation found it was not possible to account for some £500,000 of payments made