Lord Oakeshott, the former Liberal Democrat Treasury spokesman has accused the UK banks of hindering the economic recovery by refusing finance to small enterprises and charging extravagant rates when they do.
HMRC should focus on detecting genuine cases of disguised employment rather than jumping to the conclusion that all freelancers are subject to IR35 rules, according to the REC.
Lawspeed, the recruitment law specialist firm, claims there could be a conflict of interest between HR and finance departments when the Agency Workers Regulations are enforced in October this year.
Figures released last Wednesday showed a 0.5% increase in GDP in the first quarter of 2011. This balanced out the drop of 0.5% in the final quarter of last year, which was blamed on the abnormal weather we saw in December.
Accountants claim that HMRC is adopting threatening behaviour towards innocent tax payers and umbrella company contractors in a bid to gather in more income.
Umbrella companies that have been using Employee Benefit Trusts have been offered an amnesty by HMRC. This comes just months after the Revenue said it would be closing EBT schemes down.
Umbrella company contractors may be interested to learn that gas fitters, heating engineers and plumbers will shortly be receiving letters from HMRC informing them of the opportunity to put right their tax affairs.
Umbrella company contractors may be interested to learn that HMRC’s Real Time Information system is to go ahead, starting with a pilot scheme next year.