In February 2018, taxpayers were victorious in nine out of 13 late filing cases brought by HMRC. Meg Wilson, expert tax writer at Croner-I, outlines the various issues raised
The Financial Reporting Council (FRC) has taken the unusual step of responding directly to comments made by the Local Authority Pension Fund Forum (LAPFF) in response to the recent corporate governance code consultation, which the regulator says contain ‘a number of inaccuracies and errors’ about its own governance and culture
The European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) has indicated its focus continues to be on IFRS convergence, as it publishes its 2017 annual report on the enforcement and regulatory activities of accounting enforcers within the EU
The Charity Commission has appointed an interim manager to Ampleforth Abbey and the St Laurence Education Trust as a result of continued concerns about the extent to which current safeguarding risks to pupils at the schools run by the charities are being adequately managed
With a year to go until Brexit begins, three quarters of UK mid-sized businesses say no clearer picture is emerging of the future UK/EU relationship and almost a third have put investment plans on hold in response, according to research by BDO
A church leader from Luton, who lied about charity donations to fraudulently claim £150,000 gift aid repayments, has been jailed for four years after an investigation by HMRC
The International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) has issued its long-awaited revised Conceptual Framework for financial reporting, which underpins International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS), stopping short of making major changes and focusing on topics that had not previously been covered or that showed obvious shortcomings
Blair Nimmo, Tony Friar and Stuart Irwin of KPMG have been appointed as joint administrators of Vaughan Engineering Ltd (VEL), which was a supplier to collapsed outsourcing company Carillion and has now ceased trading with the loss of over 150 jobs
Mandatory audit rotation hinders competition and creates barriers for mid-tier firms with fees hitting £300,000 for tenders, says Robert Hannah, chief operating officer at Grant Thornton, as the firms pulls out of bidding for FTSE 350 audits in the future, reports Amy Austin
Mid-tier firm Grant Thornton UK has made a strategic move away from tendering for statutory audit work in the FTSE 350, citing the difficulty of taking on the Big Four’s dominance in this area
US rap artist and actor DMX, whose real name is Earl Simmons, has been given a one year jail term after he pleaded guilty to a $1.7m (£1.2m) tax fraud and admitted he ‘wasn’t following the rules’
The Treasury committee has announced an inquiry into economic crime, with a twin focus on money laundering and terrorist financing, as well as frauds and scams affecting consumers
Conviviality, the wholesaler and distributor of alcohol and impulse products, has announced it intends to appoint administrators, putting some 2,500 jobs at risk at the company which has recently reported identifying a ‘material error’ in its financial forecasts and an unexpected £30m tax bill
Colin Dempster, partner, and Fiona Taylor, associate partner, of EY’s restructuring team have been appointed joint administrators of commercial vehicle hire, sales and services business T.O.M. Group Ltd, which has ceased trading with the loss of over 400 jobs
In this month's legal updates, experts at law firm Gateley plc consider the duty of good faith and how it has been applied in a range of judgments as well as new laws which are set to be introduced to allow company directors to remove their personal addresses from Companies House
In this month’s roundup of developments in accounting and financial reporting, revised anti-money laundering rules for accountants extend focus on PEPs, charity SORP amendments, FD whistleblower flagged Carillion accounting mess
Graham Elliott, VAT expert at City & Cambridge Consultancy is confused by HMRC’s reasoning in the Dynamic People case regarding the exemption of the special method, housebuilders’ input tax block clarified, insurance-related supply issue put into question twice
Jackie Hall ACA CTA, partner at RSM on the complications employers face when classifying employees as either salaried time-workers or unmeasured workers, trust registration penalties in force for employers
In the latest career development updates, auto enrolment costs double for employers, Big Four partner pay gap data shows major disparity, Milsted Langdon expands into Bristol, deadline for gender pay reporting
This month's review of tax cases and tax news including Making Tax Digital extended to income tax, changes to termination tax payments, copy Third party information notice was required by HMRC, penalties for late return were invalid
In our monthly roundup of developments in audit and governance, KPMG defends its audit at Carillion hearing, PwC collects £2.8m Johnson Matthey audit from KPMG, AIM companies to follow a corporate governance code
This article, the last in our series on the Companies Act 2006, will focus on the auditor’s remuneration, including what details on audit remuneration companies must include in their accounts and how the fee is decided
Bill Dodwell, partner and head of tax policy at Deloitte, considers other countries methods of ensuring that online platforms and their users pay the correct amount of tax, after the Chancellor’s Spring Statement explored ways that these online platforms can encourage tax compliance
The International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) has issued a four-month consultation on minor amendments to IAS 8 Accounting Policies, Changes in Accounting Estimates and Errors, to improve the quality of financial reporting
HMRC has signed a 25-year lease for its Manchester regional hub with the tax authority planning to move employees into the building by 2022, with the building becoming the eleventh lease that HMRC has signed out of the 13 regional centres
The government is introducing legislation to help up to a thousand businesses which were affected by the ‘staircase tax’ introduced following a legal ruling on the way in which business rates in adjoining properties are calculated
Edinburgh-based accounting software supplier FreeAgent has been bought for £53m by RBS, marking the bank’s first acquisition since its disastrous £49bn takeover of Dutch giant ABN Amro in the lead-up to the financial crisis
Dominic Chappell, the former racing driver who acquired BHS in 2015, is facing a potential 15 year disqualification over the high street retailer’s subsequent collapse, but previous owner Sir Philip Green will not face disqualification proceedings, the Insolvency Service has said
The UK government and regulators should do more to ensure mandatory requirements for corporate reporting of material environmental risks are followed and push for adoption of the framework developed by the Financial Stability Board’s taskforce on climate-related financial disclosures (TCFD), according to an independent report
Two months before the introduction of the general data protection regulations (GDPR), only a minority of FTSE 100 companies are currently reporting in detail on their plans to demonstrate strong cyber security, according to analysis by Deloitte
The Scottish government is to make further revisions to its debt arrangement scheme (DAS) to make it more flexible, in a bid to encourage wider adoption of the initiative, which is designed to offer a statutory alternative to insolvency or debt consolidation
Identical twin brothers from Birmingham, who set up bogus charities to steal more than £450,000 in gift aid repayments, have been jailed for nearly 10 years following an HMRC investigation
Download the HMRC CGT indexation allowance for December 2017, RPI Index for January 2018 and HMRC rates of interest, and the current stamp duty land tax (SDLT) and land and buildings transaction tax (LBTT) rates, and more