Posted by kelly in Uncategorized | 10 Jan 12, 11:09 AM
More than £27.4 billion has been written off by Britain’s tax collectors over the past five years, according to a new report.
The document accuses HM Revenue and Customs of ‘giving up’ on this massive figure owed on all type of taxes, from National Insurance to income tax.
The amount is the equivalent of about £1,000 for every family in the country.
The report from campaign group the Taxpayers’ Alliance – entitled ‘How the taxman loses billions every year’ – says the amount of money written off between 2006/07 and 2010/11 is ‘ludicrous’.
The money has either been written off because it is ‘irrecoverable’ – for example, a company has gone into liquidation, administration or receivership – or because it is classified as a ‘remission’.
This is where HMRC decides not to pursue debt, for example, if the taxpayer has emigrated to New Zealand and it would be very time consuming and expensive to pursue the money.
The report comes a day after it was revealed that some of Britain’s biggest firms owe the taxman billions, but are regularly let off the hook.
HMRC is seeking to resolve more than 2,700 issues with the biggest companies, including disputes over outstanding tax, with potential tax at stake of £25.5 billion, a damning report from the Public Accounts Committee revealed yesterday.
To read this article that appeared in the Daily Mail in full click here
Posted by kelly in Uncategorized | 10 Jan 12, 10:54 AM
Officials have urged young people to seek advice if Christmas has pushed them into unmanageable debt and to avoid taking out high interest ‘payday’ loans.
The warning from the Insolvency Service came as official figures showed a growing mountain of debt among younger people.
The number of people taking out Debt Relief Orders (DROs) aged between 25 and 34 is more than any other age group, according to the Insolvency Service.
One in four people who have taken out DROs in England and Wales since they were introduced in April 2009 fall in to this age category.
The figures demonstrate the growing financial burden on young people, according to debt advice organisations.
To read this article in full, please click this link
Posted by kelly in Uncategorized | 14 Dec 11, 02:28 PM
Almost 300,000 businesses failed last year according to a new report by the Office of National Statistics.
The number of ‘business deaths’ rose by 20,000, some 7.4% to 297,000 between 2009 and 2010.
The ‘death rate’ also hit 12.9% compared to 11.8% for the previous year. It was the second consecutive year they had outnumbered the number of business births which fell by 0.4% to 235,000.
And the quantity of active businesses dropped by 42,000, recording a fall of 1.8%. The report also revealed less than half the number of businesses started in 2005 were still active by 2010.
The hotel and catering sector in particular fared the worst with only 33.6% of businesses surviving for five years.
A spokesman for the Forum of Private Business described the statistics as “gloomy”.
He said: ” The ONS figures speak for themselves – 2010 truly was the private sector’s ‘annus horribilis’, with record numbers of firms going to the wall, and a record low number of new start ups. It paints a gloomy picture.”
To read full article in Insolvency Today Magazine click here
Posted by kelly in Uncategorized | 4 Nov 11, 01:13 PM
Half of Britons being plunged into insolvency are women, the highest proportion since records began, a report revealed today.
It predicts official figures, which will be published tomorrow, will show women account for nearly 50% of all insolvencies in England and Wales for the first time in history.
Experts say they fear it is proof that women have paid the biggest price for the recession, with hundreds of thousands losing their jobs.
More than one million women in Britain are unemployed, with numbers growing by around 500 a day, amid warnings of worse to come.
Many women who do have a job are frustrated because they have been forced into part time work, which is typically badly paid.
Women also account for around two-thirds of the State workforce, which means they have been more affected by the Government’s cull of the public sector.
To read this article in the Daily Mail in full click here
Posted by kelly in Uncategorized | 4 Nov 11, 10:03 AM
The text of the new Directive on Late Payment in Commercial Transactions was approved in October 2010 and was published in the Official Journal of the European Union on February 2011, and came into force on the 16th March 2011. Member states, of which we are one, will have until the 16th March 2013 to implement the Directive in domestic law.
The purpose of the Directive is to encourage prompt payment of invoices as many company’s suffer with cash flow problems relating to late payment for goods and services provided.
The new Directive limits payment terms to 30 days, however if both parties agree this can be extended to 60 days. The payment period can be extended further, beyond the 60 days, on the proviso that it is “expressly agreed” by the creditor and debtor and that it is not deemed “grossly unfair to the creditor”.
A supplier will automatically be entitled to charge interest at the statutory rate (8% above the reference rate) should a debtor default in making payment within the scale of the payment terms. In the UK the reference rate will be the base rate of the Bank of England.
If a debtor defaults, in addition to the interest added, it must also pay compensation costs to the supplier at a minimum of £40. The supplier will also be able to seek recovery of any reasonable recovery costs that it incurs over and above the £40, including for instance , any legal costs incurred in instructing solicitors or a debt collection agency.
A verification period for ensuring that the goods supplied are satisfactory is 30 days. This period again can be extended in deals involving complex contracts but only if expressly agreed by both parties.
Finally, any clause of a contract which excludes the supplier’s right to interest for late payment or compensation for recovery costs will be deemed as grossly unfair. EC states implementing the Directive are required to provide that such a clause is either unenforceable or gives rise to a claim for damages.
This is a significant change and is aimed to assist company’s to recover debts. It is believed that credit control of businesses will be easier, at the same time assist company’s who are suffering in the current financial climate, due to a lack of capital to invest in growth strategies.
Cash flow is a major factor in most business failures. Should your company be suffering to meet it’s overheads, please do not hesitate to contact us on 01257 452021 and speak to an expert in business turnaround.
Posted by kelly in Uncategorized | 21 Oct 11, 09:59 AM
A report published recently in the EN shows that company failures in the North West incurred a 9.1 per cent increase during the third quarter.
Although the North West has suffered, it has got off relatively lightly as a whole, as business failures throughout the UK rose by 20.3 pre cent year on year to 7,994 in quarter three; the highest figure for more than 12 months.
The South East and London are the worst hit regions in the period, while only the East Midlands bucked the trend showing a small decline in the number of firms going out of business.
Sector wise, retail was by far the biggest percentage increase in company failures. In terms of overall numbers, however, the services industry took the largest hit, recording 2,001 company failures in the third quarter.
This combined with inflation hitting a three year high in September, together with ever increasing utility bills in respect to gas and electricity suppliers and an expected rise in business rates in England, Scotland and Wales paints a poor outlook for businesses in the next financial year.
Link to article in the EN
Posted by kelly in Uncategorized | 13 Oct 11, 02:04 PM
HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) has announced an extension of its Business Records Checks programme.
Business Records Checks were piloted earlier this year in eight key areas, and involve checks on the adequacy of small and medium sized enterprises’ business records.
The pilots found that around 44 per cent of businesses visited had issues with their record keeping, while around 12 per cent of those visited had seriously inadequate records.
HMRC will now be extending this activity from mid September to cover a number of key areas across the UK. As part of this, the number of full time staff employed on the programme will rise from 30 to 120.
HMRC plans to complete up to 12,000 Business Records Checks by the end of the current financial year, with 20,000 provisionally planned for 2012/13. HMRC is increasing the number of visits, so it can refine the process, before final decisions on a national roll out are taken in the New Year.
Initially, HMRC will only levy a record keeping penalty in the most extreme cases of poor record keeping. In the longer term, HMRC intends to issue penalties of up to £3,000 for serious inadequacies in record keeping. HMRC will issue guidance on this, and make a further announcement on when it will happen, in due course.
HMRC’s Director of Local Compliance, Richard Summersgill, said:
“Good record keeping helps businesses pay the right amount of tax at the right time, thereby potentially avoiding interest and penalties.
“Adequate records give businesses a clear idea of their trading position and profitability, allowing them to make business decisions and adjustments to ensure survival and success. And where a check has shown a business keeps adequate records, it gives HMRC a greater degree of assurance as to the likely accuracy of it’s tax returns.
“Ultimately, this is about supporting businesses and reducing the tax gap.”
For futher information click here
Posted by kelly in Uncategorized | 12 Oct 11, 10:49 AM
The number of investigations launched by the Insolvency Service has fallen nearly 40% – a drop that the agency has blamed on budget cuts of 11%.
The services’s full-year accounts for the 12 months to April 2011 show it’s company investigations unit launched 180 cases in this period, a decrease of 39% from the 295 launched in 2009-2010.
The news follows concerns that a lack of resources will reduce the service’s capacity to investigate rogue company directors.
The accounts state: “This decrease is as a consequence of 11% cuts which reduced the amount available to outsource some investigation work, and the replacing of experienced non permanent workers with permanent staff from other areas of the service last autumn.
“Towards the end of the financial year, the impending departure of a number of investigators under a voluntary exit scheme also impacted on the number of cases commenced.”
According to the accounts, the service received 4,852 complaints about limited companies in the past year. Some 564 came during the first quarter of 2011, from the Department of Business, Innovation and Skills and the Serious Organised Crime Agency.
Although only 180 investigations were started on the back of these complaints, the accounts include details of convictions from older cases. They show that 166 defendants received convictions for corporate and personal insolvency related offences and 99 defendants were dealt custodial sentences of up to six years.
Some 53 disqualification orders were dealt out to directors, ranging from 12 months to the maximum 15 years, while 15 confiscation orders were made for items worth more than £217,000.
This article is from the “Insolvency Today” publication. Click here for link to the website
Link to the Insolvency Service website
Posted by kelly in Uncategorized | 12 Oct 11, 10:09 AM
HM Revenue and Cutoms has strongly denied claims that the Time to Pay (TTP) scheme is keeping businesses afloat.
Dr Mark Abani, head of debt management and enforcement at HMRC, said the department had not been storing up problems despite signing off “billions” in TTP allowances for UK businesses.
Abani added that HMRC had industrialised it’s responses to TTP in response to the high number of applications it had received since 2008.
Addressing an audience at a conference hosted by the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales (ICAEW), Abani said: “Quite a few billion has been through TTP, but I’m not going to reveal figures.
“For those who do not engage we have increased our call centre and are introducing more analytics into our business. If you do not want to play the game, we will relentlessly pursue you until we get our share.”
Abani added that it was important for struggling businesses to tell HMRC about their problems as soon as possible, because often the taxman is not made aware of a business’ problems until an insolvency practitioner has been appointed.
He concluded: “PAYE and VAT are part of running a business, and HMRC is not an alternative bank. We will ask businesses to pay all liabilities as they come due while we are deferring their debt amount. They will need to show HMRC how they are restructuring their business, and show us that they will not fall into the same trap.”
This article is taken from “Credit Today”, Click here for link to website
Link to HMRC
Link to the ICAEW
Posted by kelly in Uncategorized | 12 Oct 11, 09:40 AM
Retail is currently in more distress over debt levels and the risk of insolvency than any other sector in the UK, research has found.
Nearly half (41%) of retailers are more likely to be concerned about their debt levels than any other sector, according to research conducted by the Insolvency trade body R3.
The research has also found that 58% of retailers are experiencing falling profits and 8% consider themselves very likely to enter insolvency in the next year, compared with a cross-sector average of 2%.
A quarter of all retailers, meanwhile, are experiencing difficulties with cash flow and 48% have suffered a fall in sales volume.
Despite the alarming outlook, R3’s research also reveals that redundancies are currently below average in retail, totalling 8% compared to a nationwide average of 13% across all UK industry sectors.
This article is taken from the ‘Credit Today’ publication (Sept 2011 issue) Click here to be taken to the ‘Credit Today’ website.
Link to R3 website
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