Hammond’s digital services tax puts UK competitiveness at risk October 31, 2018 The government has long been scratching its head for ways to address the current tax treatment of global tech platforms. Our tax code – all 10m words of it – has been struggling to keep up and adapt to a new economy that is being driven by technology, innovation, and digitalisation. On Monday, Philip Hammond [...]
As the internet approaches 50 years of life, authentication needs to evolve November 6, 2018 Monday 29th October marked the 49-year anniversary of the first ever internet transmission. As we head into the Internet’s 50th year, the problem of authentication has risen to the forefront of discussions about the state of the internet. With ubiquitous internet-based services like social media, mobile commerce, and increasingly, smart homes and connected cars, many [...]
Editor’s Notes: Brexit can’t mean an end to good governance, respite for Grenfell survivors, and from pulling pints to pitching policy October 26, 2018 There are complaints that Brexit is taking up so much time in Westminster that parliament doesn’t have the energy or the space to focus on anything else. In reality, legislators are as busy as ever but they may well be too distracted to offer effective legislative scrutiny. Last night, no fewer than nine human rights [...]
Plan to keep all of UK in EU customs union after Brexit welcomed by Dublin in Irish backstop row October 4, 2018 A radical plan to keep the whole of the UK in a customs union with the EU after Brexit has been welcomed by Dublin, it has been reported. The proposal, seen as a way of stopping a hard border being created on the island of Ireland, would be the 'backstop' arrangement if no other deal [...]
Turkish lira plummets to record low August 9, 2018 The Turkish lira plunged to a record low today against the US dollar as investors questioned the ability of the Erdogan regime to stop a deepening currency crisis. One dollar bought as much as 5.5678 lira in evening trading, as the troubled Turkish currency fell by almost five per cent in the course of the [...]
Will 2019 be the year gold regains its shine? January 28, 2019 Gold had a mixed year in 2018, quickly peaking around $1,366 in January, but falling as low as $1,160 by August. For a while it seemed that the correlation between risk-off appetite and gold prices had broken, with the yellow metal overlooked even in times of heightened uncertainty. But after a 7% recovery since early [...]
Hammond’s digital tax is an illogical game of whack-a-mole November 7, 2018 The introduction of a new digital services tax was the most depressingly inevitable part of Philip Hammond’s Budget speech last week. Years of pressure from a pincer movement of corporate tax moralists and traditional retailers have paid off. Starting in April 2020, profitable digital businesses with £500m in global revenues would face a two per cent [...]
Audit sector faces huge shake-up as new reports make radical recommendations December 18, 2018 The stage has been set for a radical shake-up of the UK’s audit sector, following the release of two highly-anticipated reports. Britain’s audit watchdog, the Financial Reporting Council (FRC), should be scrapped and replaced with a new statutory body, Sir John Kingman’s review of the Financial Reporting Council (FRC) has said. Meanwhile, the Competition and Markets [...]
Action on productivity must take centre stage as calls for action grow louder October 12, 2018 The British economy has surprised experts time and time again in recent years, as unemployment has continually hit new lows. Yet the flipside of this miraculous fall in jobless numbers has been a truly dire slump in productivity growth – a slowdown which threatens the UK’s place at the top table among the world’s big [...]
Chancellor Philip Hammond’s Autumn Budget contained tricks and treats for your personal finances October 31, 2018 The move of this year’s Autumn Budget to Monday this week rather than its traditional Wednesday slot was ostensibly to give MPs more time to debate the chancellor’s proposals before the House of Commons rises for recess on 6 November. But presumably Philip Hammond also hoped to avoid some Halloween-themed headlines, which he himself alluded to [...]