Barclays and Lloyds have become the latest big businesses to inform contractors that their engagements would not extend beyond the introduction of new off-payroll working rules to the private sector next April. Contracts will instead be arranged on a PAYE or umbrella firm basis. The move is the latest in a string of similar statements…
Looking at the books, you can see a litany of accounting failures.
After my father died I found among his papers a booklet detailing the history of his mother’s family, the Goodliffes, over several generations during the 19th century, during which they built a thriving wholesale grocery business in the Midlands. In one passage it describes how Thomas Goodliffe, my great-grandfather, went on the first escorted tour…
He didn’t know it was impossible
Did you see Messi’s goal? No, stay with me! This football related analogy has an important message for your business. I’ve been a Liverpool FC fan for more years than I can remember. Last week they played Barcelona FC in the semi-final of the Champions League. They are demonstrably two of the best teams in…
How Universal Credit is destroying a once great nation
Regular readers of my blog will know that on occasion I hand over the pen, metaphorically speaking, to highlight some injustice that should concern us all. Last week the Trussell Trust reported that it handed out over 1.6m food parcels last year, over 500,000 of them to children, as benefit cuts, Universal Credit delays, and rising poverty fuelled…
Rewarding failure
I read with interest an article by Prof Adam Leaver of Sheffield University published by Open Democracy recently. For anyone interested in financial reporting and auditing, and why they have failed to prevent corporate greed and business failures it is essential reading. In the article he looks at how Interserve, which has now failed, paid management bonuses…
New VAT registrations and Making Tax Digital
The process for registering for VAT is unchanged. A business that needs to (or chooses to) register for VAT for the first time should follow the current process to register for VAT and the VAT registration guidance on gov.uk. If the taxable turnover of the business in the previous 12 months is over the VAT registration…
Unseen truths
Maybe it’s the time of year. A warm sunny Easter. Not long after I sent you my email about consciousness I received the following email from Christian Simpson whose daily blog I follow: Nature reveals great truths – great truths unseen by the majority. Her laws, universal and unwavering, laws which apply to every part of our lives whether…
Anything at all that matters in life only does so as a consequence of its impact on our conscious mind
Have you ever wondered why relatively few entrepreneurial businesses achieve super success? It’s about one in twenty. Not very many. This should be surprising. Napoleon Hill said “Whatever the mind of man can conceive and believe, it can achieve. There is no shortage of books, articles, websites and research about what makes a successful business…
You just can’t get good staff any more.
‘Really?’ I said. ‘It can’t be that hard’. ‘It’s almost impossible’ he replied. ‘There are so few people on the market and none of them are any good’. It wasn’t a conversation I wanted to continue with. After a couple more questions I said: ‘Thank-you for your time, but on balance I don’t think we…
I don’t think I’m cut out to be rich
This week I attended a Masterclass. Amongst the discussion was an exploration of how rich people think. Of course they aren’t called rich people – that would be crass. They are called affluent, high net worth or high value, but whatever they are called they have one thing in common – a lot of money.…
