Fire and brimstone
September 26, 2005
Simon Sweetham has sparked a furious outpouring about the appointment of KPMG by HMRC to review the administrative burden faced by small business taxation. At a cost to all of us of £6 million. Here’s some of the debate:
Simon opines: "But deep down it bothers me that the people doing this work are KPMG,
and that they are trousering over £6 million in the process. KPMG know
lots and lots about business – big business – and they know lots and
lots about clever tax avoidance: but do they know anything about small
business? Do they really know what the real problems are, and can they
measure the very important stress factors which don’t obviously show up
on the balance sheet ?"Alastair Harris adds: "Any firm of accoutants earns substantial fee income from the tax system
- sounds like a significant conflict of interest? Surely this would be
better placed with an independent academic institution?"Richard Murphy chips in with: "Candidly it sickens me that a contract of this sort goes to a firm
whose American division has just been fined $456 million dollars to
avoid criminal prosecution over abusive tax shelters, with eight of its
former partners were indicted and with the firm needing an independent
monitor….KPMG London will be saying this has nothing to do with them. But that’s nonsense, as we all know…KPMG should be barred from all public contracts until they can prove they have mended their ways."
I’ve suggested an alternative approach. Bypass KPMG. Prove government wrong to be wasting money when this can be approached differently. Use the collective power of the 15,000+ firms in the UK to canvass and represent client opinion. It can be done very quickly, cheaply and effectively. Present those findings to both government and press. There are ways to do that. Don’t make this a single purpose campaign but as a springboard for the voice of the silent majority who would welcome change where that change benefits everyone.
Arctic Systems - an exercise in torture
September 19, 2005
The Arctic Systems case is of interest to many professionals. My interest is in how this gets communicated to clients. AccountingWEB talks about the technical approach and Institute guidance. Great.
Menzies previously offered advice in June. Its tone is matter of fact yet accessible for the man in the street. So did Grant Thornton. But given the guidance, I wonder what they will say next? What will you do? How will you alleviate the fears of clients who may be faced with an unwelcome tax bill?
I found Accountax offering what looks like a unique service. I like the way they describe their partners. Whether their scheme is any good is another matter. Let’s put it this way, they’re putting their money behind the appeal. Their fee structure is totally transparent. Would you be willing to present this as an alternative? I would. My one criticism is their website doesn’t offer RSS so I can’t get any news from them in my news aggregator. If I could, then they could become a regular trusted resource.
Help is always welcome
September 16, 2005
Here’s an update. John Stockdyk at AccountingWEB gave us a massive hat tip this morning. Visitors shot through the roof - like 580 visits this morning and 890 since last Sunday morning. I need to tweak the visitor stats thingy to figure out where people are coming from and all that but WOW.
Who else got linked to? (Remember the power of links I talked about), will Stuart or Richard see more traffic? I hope so. Will others be encouraged? I REALLY hope so.
Mobile strategies
September 16, 2005
The announcement that BDO Stoy Hayward is deploying 000’s of mobile devices made me laugh. They’ve made the classic mistake of deploying across multiple hardware (read Blackberry, Orange, etc etc) instead of standardising and then cutting the best deal possible.
There’s also insight into their charging structure. A Blackberry’s usage gets paid for in an extra 20 minutes productivity per month? So - that’s at least £150/hour. Phew - I’m glad I’m not one of their clients.
Oh yes - another reason to have wifi at your office. Your clients will be more productive.
