Ark Aurora Launches Cycle2Work Scheme

Ark Aurora Ltd have signed up to the Government Cycle 2 Work Scheme, in conjunction with Halfords and Salary Exchange.

The scheme has benefits for both employers and employees.  The employee sacrifices a proportion of their salary to pay for a bicycle and safety equipment to the value of up to £1,000, thereby saving tax and national insurance on the amount sacrificed.  Meanwhile, the employer saves the Employers national insurance contribution on the salary sacrificed.

In addition, the employer benefits from fitter, more alert employees, and the employee benefits from getting fitter, and savings on petrol.

Ark Aurora’s Practice Manager Stuart Thorpe (pictured) was the first person to take up the scheme.  He lives 10 miles from the practice, and intends to cycle to work at least 3 days a week when practical.  Stuart said “It takes me around 50 minutes to cycle in – and on a bad day with traffic, the same is true! I’m really enjoying the journey, although oxygen is occasionally needed at the top of one or 2 big hills!”  When asked how he will cope with bad weather, he replied “There’s no such thing as bad weather – only the wrong clothes!”

Bosses tackle rugby’s impact on work

Flexi-time response to World Cup viewing aims to maintain productivity

Pat Sweet

As the Rugby World Cup kicks off today, a survey from Close Invoice Finance shows that the UK’s SMEs are taking steps to minimise the impact that watching the games may have on staff productivity.

All four home nation teams are taking part in the six-week tournament in New Zealand, and the time difference means many games will be shown either early in the morning or at the start of the working day.

But Close Invoice Finance’s quarterly Business Barometer shows that 87% of UK SME bosses do not believe this will have a knock-on effect on staff attendance and motivation.

One in three say they plan to accommodate flexi-time requests to allow rugby-keen employees to enjoy the action, and 18% are allowing staff to watch matches on the TV or listen to them on the radio at the workplace.

According to the survey, employers in Scotland (20%) and Northern Ireland (25%) appear to be less flexible than their English counterparts. Those in the South-West are most sympathetic to fans, with 54% of employers expecting to increase flexible working options.

David Thomson, CEO Close Invoice Finance said: ‘Maintaining staff productivity levels in tough times is crucial for the survival of businesses. Getting the most out of your staff can mean the difference between survival or failure for many SMEs and the introduction of flexible working is one way companies can make sure their staff are engaged and motivated.

And as I am an avid fan, there will be no issues here!  Come on England!

HMRC takes on Rangers football club

 

Visit to Ibrox over tax repayments due

Pat Sweet

HM Revenue & Customs has paid a visit to Ibrox, home of Rangers, to deliver documents as part of an ongoing claim for repayment of backdated tax by the Scottish football club.

The two sides are in dispute over the total amount due, which is made of £2.8m plus a £1.4m penalty.

The case involves tax payments dating back to 1999 and the issues only came to light as part of due diligence carried out by Craig Whyte before his recent purchase of the club.

Rangers is contesting the £1.4m penalty largely on the basis of how the bill emerged and also because the figure owed relates to a previous management. It also says it has paid up hundreds of thousands of pounds already and is in active talks with HMRC to resolve the issue.

According to The Guardian, the latest batch of HMRC paperwork included a warning that the club’s assets could be frozen or Rangers wound up if the liability was not met.

The paper also says that Rangers is awaiting the findings of a significant tribunal with HMRC over employee benefit trust benefits to players. If that goes against them, the club could be liable for tens of millions of pounds. The affair is first due for a provisional hearing in court in Edinburgh in the next few weeks. HMRC says it will not comment on individual cases

Fake haulier jailed for VAT fraud

HMRC investigation into £600,000 spare bedroom scam

Pat Sweet

A Leeds man who fraudulently claimed £600,000 in VAT repayments for a fake haulage company has been jailed for four years following an investigation by HM Revenue & Customs.

James Harrison, who was declared bankrupt in 2005, registered his business ‘Express Haulage’ in 2007. Working from his spare bedroom, between 2007 and 2010 he created fake invoices, haulage paperwork, insurance documents and fuel receipts in order to make it look as though his company was trading as a legitimate haulier.

He claimed to have purchased 30 new haulage vehicles, spending around £211,000 on fuel for his business, when in fact his company did not even have a haulage licence. Harrison obtained fake registrations for his ‘vehicles’ by driving past a well-known haulage supplier on the first day of new vehicle registrations and jotting down the registration numbers of the vehicles as they were unloaded.

Harrison’s activities continued between October 2009 and January 2010 while he was in prison for an unrelated offence. The offences were uncovered after he submitted false VAT returns that would have entitled his ‘company’ to £604,179 in VAT repayments and made plans to expand and create a further company.

HMRC spokesman Martin McDonnell said: ‘Harrison set up his company with the sole aim of committing fraud. He brazenly defrauded taxpayers out of hundreds of thousands of pounds so that he could live the high life without having to work for it.’

HMRC officers discovered that Harrison had spent more than £430,000 over the last few years on luxury cars, caravans, business class airline tickets and gambling, whilst also continuing to claim jobseekers allowance.

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Plumbers’ amnesty raises £328,000

HMRC planning ‘thousands’ of enquiries

Pat Sweet

HM Revenue & Customs has announced that around 600 people have come forward as part of its tax amnesty for plumbers, which has raised £328,000 from voluntary disclosures.

The Plumbers Tax Safe Plan was launched in March this year and was designed to allow taxpayers to declare past tax irregularities in return for a reduced penalty. HMRC wrote to 50,000 tradespeople warning them that once the deadline passed, a fresh clampdown would take place which could result in the full penalty being imposed in tax evaders.

The scheme ended on 31 March, and HMRC figures show that it resulted in £94,000 being collected and a further £234,000 offered in unpaid tax.

HMRC has said that it will now begin enquiries into 500 people as a result of the amnesty, and that this will be followed by ‘thousands’ more.

Gary Ashford, head of tax investigations for RSM Tenon, said: ‘This is a disappointing result for HMRC. Given the low turnout I would expect HMRC to swoop quickly. I would also expect to see HMRC pursue a combination of civil and criminal investigations.’

Accountant convicted for £356m Langbar fraud

 

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Posted by John Stokdyk in In business on Mon, 27/06/2011 – 13:15

Accountant and former Langbar CEO Stuart Pearson was jailed last month for falsely claiming that his company had £356m in assets with Banco do Brasil.

A chartered accountant and former Baker Tilly partner, Pearson was sentenced to 12 months in jail for his part in the fraud and disqualified from being a company director for five years.  He was acquitted on 10 other counts of making a misleading statement, contrary to s397 of the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000.

A confiscation hearing will take place on 1 August. No other individuals have been charged in connection with the investment fraud, which came to light in 2005. The company’s legal adviser, Nabarro Wells, was fined £250,000 for due diligence failures in 2007.

Pearson’s crime was to have issued regulatory statements and told analysts the company had assets with Baco do Brasil after officials at a Spanish bank had notified his company that the certificate it used to back the claims was false.

“His background meant that he would have been fully cognisant with the strict requirements and standards demanded of companies publishing information to the market,” the Serious Fraud Office commented in an official statement on the case.

Previously known as Crown Corp, the company was formed in Bermuda in June 2003 and gained a listing on London’s Alternative Investment Market. It issued a series of announcements detailing profitable contract wins, but didn’t really attract the attention of investors until 2005 it backed into Pearson’s company Langbar, took on its name and appointed the accountant as CEO.

In a lengthy analysis, The Guardian characterised Pearson as “little more than a patsy” for the shadowy investors who constructed the phantom investment vehicle.

In 2005 Pearson travelled to Brazil with Avi Arad, chief of Langbar’s primary investor, Lambert International Finance of Delaware. When he got to São Paulo, Pearson was told that because of a bomb scare at Banco do Brasil’s office his meeting with one of the bank’s lawyers would take place elsewhere. The venue turned out to be a notorious fraud hotspot and both the lawyer and the document he signed were bogus.

As the deception unraveled, Pearson was forced to suspend trading in the company’s shares in October 2005 and call in forensic investigators from Kroll. As the SFO put it, Lambert Financial Investments had over 41 million CCL shares at 5 Euros each, it had issued a certificate of deposit which was false and worthless (and the principal directors knew this). CCL had no money and its shares no real value. “Despite this, CCL continued to make public statements to the market about its value based on the bogus certificate.”

While the accountant was convicted, the principal authors of the Langbar fraud are still at large and millions of pounds raised from private and institutional investors including including Gartmore, and Merrill Lynch have not been traced.

The Weekend Beckons

As the working week draws to a close, I have been reflecting on the past few days.  It’s been a reasonably average week – a couple  of networking events, notably Griffin & King held an event in Walsall which was well attended and had a great lunch.  The office is functioning well, and we continue to try and give our clients the service they deserve.

On a personal note, I finished my rugby season in style, as club 4th Official for Worcester Warriors, who won the RFU Championship to secure a return to the Premiership in September.  It was a great match, and great fun to watch the post match celebrations.

So, a short article of interest will follow, and then I’m off home!

HMRC wins supreme court ruling over £30m tax avoidance scheme

MCashback investors not able to claim software tax relief

Pat Sweet

12 May 2011

The UK supreme court has ruled in favour of HM Revenue & Customs in a tax avoidance case which could cost wealthy investors £30m.

The ruling mainly relates to two partnerships, called Tower MCashback 1 and Tower MCashback 2, which were used as part of a tax avoidance scheme by around 200 investors.

The scheme involved a software company called MCashback which developed a software system to handle loyalty card payments. The partnerships entered into licence agreements with MCashback under which each acquired rights to use an element of the software. Investors put up 25% of the cost of buying software from the company, while the other 75% came from loans indirectly provided by MCashback itself.

The investors then tried to claim a software-related tax relief for the full 100% of the cash paid for the software, enabling them to get £40 off their income tax bills for every £25 they put up.

Those who signed up for the scheme included members of the pop band Liberty X, Peter Farquhar, the former chief executive of ethical breakfast brand Dorset Cereals, several financial advisers from wealth management group St James’s Place, bankers from Deutsche Bank, and a group of dentists from a clinic in Suffolk, according to the Guardian.

However, the supreme court has now ruled that they can only claim the tax relief for the cash that they invested.

Bill Dodwell, a tax adviser at Deloitte, described the scheme as pushing the bounds of credibility and said: ‘The price paid for the software was just absurd. Investors were never going to repay the loans, either.’

The court’s decision ends a long legal battle over the scheme, which first came to the tax tribunals in 2007. The claims relate to the years 2003-4 and 2004-5.

HMRC probe jails woman for VAT fraud

‘Breath-taking’ dishonesty of false identities

Pat Sweet

06 May 2011

A woman who used a string of aliases has been jailed for seven years for illegally reclaiming £118,000 in VAT and committing forgery following an investigation by HM Revenue & Customs.

Alison Reynolds, who has a theatrical background, used at least 15 different names and identities. She ran a dress shop in Southampton, but also created four theatre companies using aliases to register for VAT and to submit four VAT repayment claims.

The HMRC investigation found Reynolds falsified purchase invoices and Companies House documents and used various bank accounts, false identities and a string of mail box addresses to defraud the revenue.

Investigating officers discovered identity documents, including passports and driving licences in a number of names, along with signatures practised on sheets of tracing paper. They also discovered ‘to-do’ lists with reminders of ‘VAT invoices to fake’.

Forensic analysis of Reynolds’ computer uncovered a letter on theatre company notepaper suggesting that one of her aliases had gone missing in the Boxing Day tsunami of 2004.

On at least two occasions Reynolds met VAT inspectors at short-leased rented office accommodation in Bristol, and at other times in her mother’s home, to give the mostly mail-box fronted businesses an air of legitimacy.

John Cooper, HMRC assistant director criminal investigation said: ‘The complexity of this crime would have required detailed planning. Not only did Alison Reynolds commit fraud on paper, but she also adopted the different persona and appearance of her aliases.’

Reynolds pleaded guilty at Southampton Crown Court to four counts of cheating the public revenue (VAT fraud) and four counts of forgery / fraud. These included possessing a false UK driving licence, falsifying – and then using – a forged legal document to change her name and forging a letter from HMRC suggesting a VAT repayment was due.

The judge described her level of dishonesty as ‘breath-taking’ and said: ‘I’ve not seen a case that involves such detail of fraudulent activity.’

Facebook–Are you missing out?

 

Have you noticed that you are only seeing updates in your newsfeed from the same people lately?

Have you also noticed that when you post things like status messages, photos and links, the same circle of people are commenting and everyone else seems to be ignoring you?

Don’t worry, everyone still loves you and nobody has intentionally blocked you. The problem is that a large chunk of your friend/fan list can’t see anything you post and here’s why:

The “New Facebook” has a newsfeed setting that by default is automatically set to show ONLY posts from people who you’ve recently interacted with or interacted the most with (which would be limited to the couple of weeks just before people started switching to the new profile). So in other words, for both business and personal pages, unless your friends/fans commented on one of your posts within those few weeks or vice versa – you are now invisible to them and they are invisible to you!!

HERE’S THE FIX: On the homepage click the “Most Recent” title on the right of the Newsfeed, then click on the drop down arrow beside it and select “Edit Options”, click on “Show Posts From” and change the setting to “All Of Your Friends and Pages” (you can also access the “Edit Options” link at the very bottom of the Facebook homepage on the right) Note: Business pages do not have a newsfeed however page owners should adjust the settings on their personal accounts.

The good news is: now you can now view all of your friends and fans again. The bad news is: YOU ARE STILL INVISIBLE to a large portion of your list. You must get the word out to ALL of your friends and fans by sharing this with them.  You can also tweet about it, create a blog post or send out an email to your subscribers in hopes of reaching them all.

Managers Soft Skills

As a manager, it has never been enough to be technically adept. You have to excel at soft skills as well. Soft skills are the personality traits, attitudes, habits, and behaviours you display when working with others. While good soft skills are also important for employees, they are critical for managers – and for those who want to be managers. Here are the ten most important soft skills managers need to master.

Top Soft Skills For Managers

• Dependability
  Can you be depended on to be where you need to be, to do what needs to be done, to do what you say you will? Your boss must be able to depend on you or you will not get ahead. It is equally important that your peers and your subordinates believe they can depend on you too. Without that, they will not give you the support you need if you are going to be successful.
• Candour
  Tell it like it is. Don’t sugar coat things. Don’t say what you think the boss wants to hear. I respect people, above and below me, who are candid. I don’t have to waste time figuring out what they really mean.
• Work Ethic
  You were hired to do a job. Do you do it or do you sit back and watch others work? Are you the hardest working person in your group? If not, you ought to be.
• Communication Skill
  How well do you communicate with your boss, your peers, your subordinates? Are you able to communicate as well in writing as you are verbally? If you have any weakness in this area you need to work to improve or to eliminate it.
• Community and Teamwork
  A lot has been written about the need to demonstrate your ability to work well with the other members of your team. It is a skill that is becoming more important as we move toward more cross-functional teams. But it is also important that a manager build community. Don’t just be part of your team, but understand how it fits in the larger organization and work to strengthen those connections.
• Time Management Skills
  The one resource a manager will never have enough of is time. To succeed as a manager, it is vitally important that you develop, and continually improve your skill, in time management. In addition to the ability to prioritize and to delegate, which reduce the number of things you have to do, you have to be able to maximize what you do get done in the time you have.
• Goal Setting
  Good managers are able to determine what needs to be done and to set goals to get there. Don’t just drift through the day dealing with what lands on your plate. Prioritize. Figure out what needs to be done and set specific goals for yourself and for your team.
• Mental Agility
  When hiring, I always look for the candidate who is one step ahead of me in the interview because that person will be the same way when hired. These people catch on quick. They understand business in general and their industry in particular. They are critical thinkers and problem solvers.
• Flexibility
  We face changes every day. Laws and regulations change. Competitors release new products. Disasters happen. Good managers have the flexibility to deal with constant change. Good managers expect change and plan for it. As a result, they are better prepared for unexpected changes. Their flexibility lets them react more quickly and minimize the disruption change can bring.
• Takes Direction Well
  As much as manager are valued for their ability to figure out what needs to be done and get after it, there are still times when they need to be told to do something. Whether it is a change in strategic direction or coaching regarding their performance a good manager has to be able to not only accept the directions, but to do so with a positive attitude, and learn from them.

Bottom Line

Your technical skills may be what got you noticed and promoted, but they are not enough. To succeed as a manager you need to be as talented in your soft skills. In those areas where you have a well developed skill, keep it up. In the other areas, work harder to improve. That’s how to improve your chances for success.

 

source – http://management.about.com