Business
We Need Lower and Simpler Taxes to Prevent Tax Avoidance
By Ben Ramanauskas The recent revelation that many leading political figures around the world have been using offshore tax havens to hide their money has caused widespread outrage in the the UK and abroad. The Prime Minister of Iceland has resigned as a result, and there are calls by many in Britain for David Cameron to do the same. It has also focussed the public’s attention on UK tax law and those who both evade and avoid paying tax in...
Reddit User Gives Excellent Analogy of Panama Papers
A Reddit user has posted an inspired analogy of the Panama Papers, likening the leak to a kid's piggy bank. DanGliesack dumbed-down the data leak to shed light on its importance. Read it in full below: When you get a quarter you put it in the piggy bank. The piggy bank is on a shelf in your closet. Your mom knows this and she checks on it every once in a while, so she knows when you put more money...
How do you find the right technology consultancy to help your business?
FIVE QUESTIONS TO ASK IN FINDING THE RIGHT TECHNOLOGY CONSULTANCY Finding the right consultancy for your business isn’t necessarily straightforward. After all, it’s a competitive market out there and many companies have a great deal to shout about. On the other hand, some are inept cowboys who use jargon and a fancy website to blind potential clients and capitalise on their knowledge asymmetry. With so much choice available, how do you go about ensuring you engage with the right consultancy...
Cameron’s dad ‘ran offshore fund that paid zero UK tax for 30 years’
By Joe Mellor, Deputy Editor The huge leak from Panama-based law firm Mossack Fonseca may have dragged in the PMs own late father. 11.5 million documents have been leaked, document work stretching back nearly 40 years and a firm Ian Cameron was director of, has cropped up in the paperwork. It is alleged that Cameron’s dad was embroiled in recruiting what has been dubbed a small army of Bahamas residents, to sign paperwork on behalf of an offshore fund, which...
When Free Trade Fails: The Fall of British Steel
By Dean Hochlaf As I write, 40,000 workers in the British steel industry face an uncertain future. Tata Steel is on the verge of selling its unprofitable British operations. While attention given to the state of British steel gathers momentum, it is becoming painfully clear that the seeds of the collapse of British steel were sown long ago. There are several reasons as to why we are witnessing this fall, high energy costs among them, however a lot of attention and...
Osborne put relationship with China above steel interests, says Clegg
By Joe Mellor, Deputy Editor The Chancellor has come out fighting and has defended the Government’s handling of the steel crisis, but his special relationship with China is clouding his judgment, critics have claimed. He said the Tories were doing all that is "practicable and possible" to slap tougher tariffs on cheap steel. The steel crisis has been squarely blamed on China continually dumping cheap steel on European markets and making UK steel far too expensive. Instead on intervening, it...
Google investing in grass roots journalism
National news agency SWNS has won funding for a market-leading syndication platform in the first round of grants from Google’s Digital News Initiative (DNI). Google is making a total of £118m (Euro 150m) available in the DNI to support innovation in journalism through technology. SWNS is the largest independent press agency in the UK. The Bristol-based content provider is among just 17 successful applicants in the UK who have been offered funding by the tech giant. In February it was announced that 128...
Amount of bankers earning over €1m up to almost 3,000
By Joe Mellor, Deputy Editor The City of London has more than three times as many multi-millionaire bankers as the rest of the European Union combined. The number of bankers with a take home pay of over one million Euros (£800k) per annum rose to almost 3 thousand in 2014, one of which made an astonishing €25 million. The UK, which houses Europe’s biggest financial district in London, dwarfs the rest of the EU bankers in terms of large salaries,...
Map of companies worth entire countries stock markets
By Joe Mellor, Deputy Editor The global stock markets have had a tough time of late and the largest corporations in the world dwarf some countries stock market valuation. For example Google and Amazon have a combined worth of $747bn, Netflix is $40bn and McDonald’s is around $109bn. These figures are pretty hard to get your head around, so Bank of America Merrill Lynch has created a map to help illustrate the size of these companies compared to stock markets...