In the UK it is remarkably easy and cheap to form a limited company. For less than £100, perhaps even less than £50, you can have a company formed in a matter of hours. This compares to the situation in many other EC countries where the costs can run into thousands and it can take [...]
As promised by Gordon Brown at the end of the G20 summit today, the OECD (Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development) has provided a detailed report on progress by financial centres around the world towards implementation of an internationally agreed standard on exchange of information for tax purposes. The list is split into four sections [...]
Anyone setting up a business in Germany has a few problems to overcome. High taxation, high social charges, and high cost of company formation to name just three. That’s why more and more Germans are setting up companies in the United Kingdom. Believe it or not, the UK remains very business friendly. Anyone can set [...]
Wherever you look on the Internet you will find free and trial software that you can download and use. I often try software I’ve come across on forums and blogs either for my own use or to recommend to clients. I was discussing this with a friend a few days ago and he was horrified! [...]
Whilst Gordon Brown, Alastair Darling and Barack Obama attack the Isle of Man as a “Tax Havens” the OECD (Organisation for Economic Cooperation & Development) praise the Isle of Man. If proof were ever needed that the bully boys of the UK and USA are attacking small offshore countries just to divert attention from their [...]
I live in the Isle of Man. For those of you who don’t know this is a small island in the middle of the Irish Sea about midway between England, Scotland and Ireland (and a little further from Wales). Although one of the British Isles we are an independent country – with the oldest [...]
The Health and Safety (Offences) Act 2008 (the “Act”) came into force on 16 January 2009, increasing penalties for health and safety offences. Principally the Act: raises the maximum fine that can be imposed when a case is brought in a lower court from £5,000 to £20,000; broadens the range of cases that can be [...]
Despite the Prime Minister hailing it as a success, it emerged over the weekend that only about £12 Million of the £1 Billion government loan guarantee scheme has actually been lent to companies. Last week Gordon Brown sought to defend the government’s record on helping business by repeatedly citing the £1bn loan guarantee scheme as [...]
One of the world’s longest running cases was settle out of court 67 years after it started in 1941. The case, known as Re Jahre, concerned a dispute over the recovery of assets alleged to belong to the shipping magnate Anders Jahre. Jahre died aged 90 before the main trial started in 1983. Although the [...]
I recently received a question from the owner of a UK company questioning the imposition of Spanish withholding tax on payments his company received from a Spanish subsidiary. He thought that the EU Parent-Subsidiary Directive exempted the tax. In fact it would do for dividends but not for royalty payments, which these payments were for [...]
The implementation of Section 69 of the Companies Act 2006 gives a person who has goodwill in a name a statutory right to make application to the Company Names Adjudicator objecting to the same name, or something so similar as to suggest an association between the company and the applicant, being registered as a company [...]
A New Publication – Standing together: universities helping business through the downturn, has been put together by Universities UK, as the major representative body for the higher education sector, with the assistance of the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE). It sets out the kind of support universities and colleges can offer employers, both [...]
The British Treasury has set up an independent review to examine the operations of offshore financial centres and their effect on the UK economy. The review will look at the current and future risks posed by the current economic crisis to the financial business of British Crown Dependencies and Overseas Territories including Jersey, Guernsey, the [...]
Recent UK legislation has resulted in the real possibility that contractors using offshore umbrella companies could face massive back tax bills. For a number of years now many contractors have worked via umbrellas companies based offshore in jurisdictions such as the Isle of Man. These companies have offered contractors up to 85 per cent of [...]
Ken Henry, Australia’s Treasury Secretary today unveiled the first in a series of long awaited consultation papers which are aimed at simplifying the country’s overcomplicated tax system in a bid to attract greater investment into the country. Currently Australians are subject to 125 different taxes, but the vast majority of government revenue (about 90%) is [...]
From 1 October 2008, there is a new right for individuals, partnerships or companies to object to the registration of a new company with the same or similar name as they use for their own business. This new right has been established under the 2006 Companies Act which itself is being introduced in stages over [...]
The Law Society has just published a report entitled Reforming Bribery setting out proposals which it intends should clarify and simplify the existing laws. Anyone in business should be aware that there already are established offences of bribery and corruption on the United Kingdom statutes. International pressure is increasingly being applied to stamp out activities [...]
Amid much hype and to no-one’s surprise, yesterday Alistair Darling cut the standard rate of VAT to 15% with effect from the 1 December 2008. The cut is temporary and so on 1st January 2010 the standard rate will return to 17.5%. The 15% rate will apply to the supply of goods and services currently [...]
David Cameron has called for Gordon Brown to cut the red tape surrounding government contracts to allow smaller, newer firms to win business. The Conservative leader says less than one in five contracts from the government goes to small firms and this should be changed as it is responsible for buying goods and services [...]
Customers are the lifeblood of any business and without them no company can survive. So how do you go about getting (and keeping) customers? Finding customers is the key to running a successful business and all highly successful businesses are good at marketing. This doesn’t mean that you need to spend thousands on an expensive [...]
