26/09/2010 by admin.

It seems that HMRC has obtained a list of wealthy individuals with accounts at the Swiss division of HSBC. This list was stolen by an HSBC employee and passed to the taxman by the French authorities, HSBC are not accused of any wrongdoing.

The Coalition believe that closing tax loopholes could generate up to £7bn a year by 2015 additional income tax revenue. The HMRC have said that: “The days of hiding money offshore to evade tax are now over.” 

But this is a shame because this is not really the Coalition getting tough with the rich, it is a worldwide clampdown on “offshore” tax havens ordered by the G20 last year.

Posted in Finance | 3 Comments »

31/07/2010 by admin.

I’m going to talk about tax credits after it has been reported that overpayments are set to soar. I think we all know of someone who after being given money by this incompetent Revenue and Customs department has had to give some of it back later. You are playing with peoples lives here, what you do affects them dramatically, ok a few quid you think, but that can be the difference between heating your home or not, eating or not. It can make people unwell and tip the balance leading to phychological problems. When will this government stop bashing the poor, every day I hear some sort of legislation designed to claw money back from them. This government are going to get a reputation just like the old heartless Thatcher government. Don’t they realise that the Poll Tax riots nearly led to a revolution in this country. I don’t see this Coalition going for criminals and tax cheats with the same fervour. I fear social unrest and all this has to be said by someone.

Posted in Finance | 4 Comments »

16/07/2010 by admin.

I watch BBC’s Question Time religiously every week but on last night’s programme I was amazed at David Dimbleby. He had a coughing fit early on in the programme which might have upset his rhythm but I thought that he was interrupting too much again, he has been getting consecutively bad at this with every episode. Andy Burnham picked up on a mistake about “tweets” “tweeting” “twittering” or whatever and from then on Dimbles was clearly rattled and had a couple of goes at Andy Burnham (who I thought by the way was excellent). I am glad that this series of Question Time is coming to an end, it is clear that Dimbles needs some sort of long expensive holiday on his over inflated wages (paid by us, licence fee payers) to calm him down. Also for some reason or another since the Coalition have taken over government the programme has lost something, can anyone suggest what?

Posted in Finance | 1 Comment »

02/07/2010 by admin.

Kwik-Fit has just agreed a deal to sell its insurance arm to Belgian insurer Ageas for £215m. The deal, which is subject to regulatory approval,  should be completed in the next three months. It will give Ageas 600,000 more customers in the United Kingdom, on top of the one million it already has. Kwik-Fit is currently owned by French private equity group PAI Partners.

Posted in Finance | 2 Comments »

02/07/2010 by admin.

The Times and Sunday Times website has introduced a paywall, this is mainly due to falling advertising income. From now on, access to the Times website will cost £1 per day, or £2 a week if you sign up to a subscription. Do you think that this idea will succeed? Or will readers go elsewhere?

Posted in Finance | 4 Comments »