Christie Malry's own double-entry
Posted by Christie Malry on February 21, 2012 at 7:17 pm
From an article in today's CityAM. The picture isn't included in the online article, but here is is in the print edition:
Why is Helen Weir's picture shown above Alison Brittain's name? Don't CityAM know their female senior executives? Tsk!
Posted by Christie Malry on January 27, 2012 at 8:51 pm
There's a good letter in today's City AM:
Held accountable
I watched Nick Clegg’s interview on BBC Breakfast TV yesterday morning and was furious to hear him say “for those who can't afford an accountant to fiddle their taxes”. How dare he. I assume therefore that he does his own return?
I’m fed up of politicians referring to accountants as one degree away from criminals. Professional, qualified accountants like myself have a high degree of integrity and abide by the UK tax laws, we do not “fiddle” taxes.
Joe Lee ACCA FMAAT
principal, Apple Accountancy Services
I totally agree. Clegg's assault on our profession demonstrates a total lack of understanding of what tax accountants actually do. He should be ashamed of himself.
Posted by Christie Malry on January 10, 2012 at 7:41 pm
Oh, looky, Anthony Evans in CityAM's Forum:
In a recent report, Action Aid found that 98 per cent of FTSE 100 companies had subsidiaries that operated within a tax haven. There are problems with how they define tax havens, and Christie Malry’s FCA blog has already taken them to task for this. They use a conventional definition from the US Congress’s Government Accountability Office and then supplement it with a mixture of states and countries that they arbitrarily define as tax havens. Since this list includes parts of the US and EU it should be taken with a large pinch of salt. However, when a TV news channel reported this, it implied that owning a subsidiary within a particular country is the same thing as the entire company being based there, claiming that “98 out of the 100 companies on the FTSE 100 base their operations in territories where there is low or no tax.” This would be like saying that Coca Cola, McDonalds and Ford are “based in the UK” purely because they have operations here. Once this started circulating, some people mistook “low or no tax” with simply “no tax”, feigning outrage that 98 per cent of the UK’s 100 largest companies do not pay tax at all. But all companies pay tax.
Wow, thanks!
The original blog post to which Anthony refers is here.
Posted by Christie Malry on October 6, 2011 at 9:48 pm
Allister Heath, the only business journalist I actively rush to read every morning has had a funny turn this morning:
CABLE RIGHT FOR ONCE
EVERY little helps. Vince Cable’s business department plans to make 36,000 small companies exempt from having to audit their accounts – a process that currently costs almost £10,000 per year. It will also allow 83,000 subsidiaries to opt out.
While it doesn’t go that far, this is nevertheless one of the few genuine deregulatory measures taken by a government that has otherwise continued to add extra red tape (contrary to what it claims). For once, therefore, Vince Cable deserves to be congratulated. I can hardly believe I have just written this – but I mean it.
Well, he's right that this government, like the last one, has categorically failed to deliver any meaningful improvement in business regulation. But it's unfortunate that he shares with Cable the misguided notion that audit is an unnecessary regulatory burden.
It's important to distinguish two issues here. Firstly it's right that the government should be very careful about what it mandates. So I have no problem with the government reducing the number of companies that are required to have an audit by law. But Cable has gone further. By articulating the cost of audit, he's incorrectly ignoring the benefits that those companies get from their audit. For some of them, the cost will not exceed the benefit. But for others the benefits can be significant. Audit helps give owner-managers a better grip on their business. It may help identify internal control weaknesses that could damage the business, or to find improvements that could boost profitability. Most vitally, an audited set of accounts can help convince lenders that the company is a better credit risk, reducing their borrowing and credit costs.
But, even worse, Cable's rhetoric is unacceptably disparaging of an important business process. As an analogy, imagine for a moment that the government were to decide to do away with the annual MOT for cars. While this would be bad for many garages, they would be outraged if government were to paint the MOT as an unnecessary burden on motorists. Doing so would undermine any hope they might have of selling an annual car health-check to motorists on a voluntary basis. Given the the importance of growth to the government's agenda, it's astonishing that Cable would put the boot into the accountancy sector in the way he has. And even more incredible when you think that his department has responsibility for the sector (through the Financial Reporting Council).
Audit wasn't invented by government. However, the current audit requirements, some of which are felt by politicians to be burdensome, are entirely due to government. They have some serious chutzpah trying to take credit for destroying a market which, were it not for them, would happily offer value-added services to business. Only, thanks to the graceless nature of Cable's withdrawal, that now looks unlikely.
The ACCA don't like Vince's proposals, while the ICAEW are decidedly lukewarm and are asking their members for feedback.
Posted by Christie Malry on May 13, 2011 at 9:38 am
City AM reports that the ICAEW is now gunning for Edward Hunter, the Apprentice candidate who was first out of the boardroom on Tuesday night.
"There's no shame in being an accountant," said an outraged Gavin Aspden, director of qualifications at the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales, which accredited Hunter. "We remain the most popular breeding ground for future chief executives, with 14 of the current FTSE 100 CEOs qualifying with ICAEW, up from 11 last year."
Poor Edward. Yet am I the only one who finds the concept of a "breeding ground" for CEOs, well, rather icky? Are there perhaps a load of superinjunctions involving major business figures?
