And the mountains?
Part of my family comes from Cumbria so I have always known the mountains and loved them. Yet you can never underestimate them. People talk about conquering mountains but that is an illusion. You are only there on sufferance as…
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Employee shareholder status abolished following ‘abuse’
The only genuinely unexpected measure in yesterday’s Autumn Statement is the ending of favourable tax treatment of employee shareholders, a policy introduced in 2013. Employee shareholder status was originally intended as a way of allowing small companies to grow rapidly…
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What is it about tax that attracts ?
I am sure that every professional has their own take on this. When I left my first firm of accountants in search of experience after five or so years, my tax manager stressed that, ‘I would not find anything quite…
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Why do I write?
I have always written short, and sometimes not so short, pieces for professional journals but the freedom to control my time has enabled me to radically change the nature of what I write. It has also allowed me to consider…
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What led me to set up my own practice?
Once I had obtained sufficient breadth of experience and qualified my leanings were very much toward private client and family businesses. I have always taken the view that the secret to a working knowledge of tax is to gain a…
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How Did I Get Into Tax?
When I was starting out in the mid-1980’s people with degrees didn’t choose to go into tax. Tax wasn’t on anyone’s radar. It was something you came across if you were working in a parallel profession such as accountancy, law…
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Autumn Statement Predictions
On Wednesday 23 November, Chancellor Philip Hammond will deliver the 2016 Autumn Statement, setting out the fiscal agenda for next year. Some of the topics can be guessed from HM Revenue & Customs’ extensive list or recent consultations. These may…
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Tax Rises in 20 EU States in 2015: Eurostat Report
The European Union statistics agency, Eurostat, has released new figures concerning member states’ tax revenue collections and their tax mixes for 2015. As a ratio of GDP, in 2015 tax revenue (including net social contributions) accounted for 40 percent of…
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