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by Jaimie Kaffash

BANKS COULD BE forced to reveal the extent of their corporation tax contributions as part of a parliamentary committee's review on the sector.

The Treasury select committee will consider asking the banks to extract payroll taxes from the wider tax bill, the Telegraph has reported. This followed reports over the weekend about Barclays paying £113m in corporation tax out of a total tax bill of £2bn in 2009. The bank made £11.bn profits that year.

o    Banks must pay their tax dues: Osborne

o    UK’s top banks sign up to tax avoidance code

The annual reports of the partially state-owned banks – including Royal Bank of Scotland and the Lloyds Banking Group – are expected this week. Experts have said that their corporation tax will be lower because of the losses incurred through the unravelling of their toxic assets.

Former Liberal Democrat Treasury spokesman Lord Oakeshott said he would ask HM Revenue & Customs to reveal the extent to which the banks adhere to the code.

The select committee's report on greater competition in the banking sector is expected shortly.

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by Jaimie Kaffash

THE TAXMAN IS set to sign a multi-million pound agreement with the Premier League over tax owed by footballers for their image rights.

The Daily Mail has reported that image rights for footballers could be outlawed under the settlement. Any player with an offshore account will be charged for all the taxes owed over the past eight years, while those with British accounts will be dealt with more leniently, the report claims.

o    Lehmans halts Premier League court battle

o    Accountants investigate Premier League transfers

Manchester United, Chelsea and Birmingham City are the only clubs to have confirmed they are in talks.

United have already confirmed that any tax owed for the rights would be paid by the players, which Chelsea are also considering.

Under image rights deals, the club pays money to companies set up by players for images used by the club for commercial benefits. The player's company then pays corporation tax rates and not tax on earnings.

An HMRC source told the Mail: "We have footballers’ image rights very much in our sights. We’ve had enough of people flouting the rules.

"A proportion of income set aside as image rights is fair enough - perhaps between 10-20%. When it gets beyond that to 25-30% of salary, it’s for the employer to prove the figures are justified.

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Small Business News

Poll of over 1,000 global entrepreneurs puts Virgin boss on top

Women role models still thin on the ground

In a recent blur Group survey of more than 1,000 entrepreneurs from 75 countries in its Innovatrs Crowd, Richard Branson topped the list of inspirational entrepreneurs.

Branson took a staggering 27.5% of the votes, with people citing his constant innovation of new products and ideas as the reason for his selection. Steve Jobs took second place with 16.8%, and Bill Gates came in third with 12%. Other interesting entries include Oprah Winfrey with 1.1% - which puts her on a par with Lord Alan Sugar. Sugar’s ‘The Apprentice’ US counterpart Donald Trump received 3.8% putting him in 5th place behind Warren Buffett with 4.8%.

“Even though these entrepreneurs are building businesses around innovative and cutting edge concepts, their inspiration still seems to come from more traditionally recognised role models.”

said Philip Letts, Co-Founder of blur Group and its Innovatrs Crowd.

“However, some new names are emerging - we’ve seen the guys behind Facebook, Google, and Amazon in the list, and as we’re joined by more entrepreneurs from across the world we’re seeing people like Dhuri Bhai Ambani, and Mohammed Yunus getting more and more popular.”

When asked what makes a successful entrepreneur, most said that making money was key - the average wealth among the top 5 entrepreneurs is $22bn. The presence of Mohammed Yunus (for example) shows that social responsibility is also an important criteria for the Innovatrs - many of whom were clearly impressed by the microfinancing provided by Mr Yunus’ Grameen Bank.

It says a lot about the entrepreneurial character of the respondents that 3.5% listed ‘myself’ as their favourite entrepreneur - more than twice as many than chose Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg.

9.1% of Innovatrs in the survey were women. Oprah Winfrey and Anita Roddick were the only female entrepreneurs mentioned, together comprising 2.3% of the vote. A live twitter chat also mentioned Sahar Hashemi - who was praised for acknowledging mistakes and giving good advice - considered good entrepreneurial traits by our Innovatrs.

The oil giant Shell has reported profits almost doubled from $9.8bn to $18.6bn (£11.5bn) for 2010 partly thanks to rising oil prices and output.

Its chief executive, Peter Voser, said the company had made good progress and that there was "still more to come".

During the year, the company made $7bn of acquisitions and invested $3bn in exploration.

For the final quarter Shell made profits of $5.7bn, compared with $1.2bn for the same period in 2009.

Despite the strong gains, Shell's shares fell more than 2% in early trading.

Richard Hunter, head of equities at Hargreaves Lansdown Stockbrokers said shares had risen 27% over the past year and investors were taking profits: "Net income was well above expectations and a significant improvement on the previous year."

The fourth-quarter results are in line with rival BP, which earlier this week reported a profit of $4.6bn for that period, although the cost of sorting out the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico left BP with an annual loss.

Natural gas

Shell's results are reported on a current cost basis, which strips out fluctuations in the value of the oil stocks it has not sold.

The price of US crude oil prices averaged about $85 a barrel in the fourth quarter, up from $76 in the fourth quarter of 2009.

Brent crude this week hit $102 a barrel in London - its highest price since 2008.

Shell said it planned at least $25bn in capital expenditure this year.

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By Holly Williams, PA

High street banking giant Santander reported an 11% hike in UK annual profits today, but revealed the pressure of intense competition for mortgages and savings business.

The group, which has snapped up a raft of UK players such as Alliance & Leicester and Abbey in recent years, said net mortgage lending - new loans less redemptions - fell 27% in 2010, while savings deposits plunged by more than a third.

It grew pre-tax trading profits in the UK to £2.3 billion, but it warned that banking margins were being hit as it faces increasing costs to attract savings and meet new regulatory requirements.
Despite the challenges, its UK arm helped offset an even tougher market for the wider Spanish group, which saw bad debt charges drag annual profits down by 8.5% to 8.18 billion euros (£6.96 billion).

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by Rachael Singh

02 Feb 2011

THE TAXMAN has said it will continue with its deadline for corporation tax returns to be filed online despite calls for a delay prompted by concerns that new technology may not be ready.

From 1 April all corporation tax must be filed to HMRC using new data-tagging technology known as iXBRL. But at least one big software provider has said it will not have a full iXBRL technology ready in time.

Further reading

o    Accounting institutes call on Treasury to delay iXBRL

o    Will iXBRL software delays dent confidence in Sage?

o    Sage delays full iXBRL release

o    Budgets soar to tackle iXBRL accounts

o    Accountants not ready for iXBRL says CCH survey

This week six accountancy institutes wrote to the exchequer secretary to the Treasury, David Gauke, requesting the government push back the implementation deadline.

However, an HMRC spokesman said the deadline remains in place.

"Treasury Ministers will want to consider the representations made by the tax agent representative bodies, but the current plan to mandate the online channel with iXBRL for company tax returns remains in place," he said.

The institutes believe that accountants face implementation problems as software companies are either not ready for iXBRL, or have only recently released the new technology.

They believe accountants need more time to familiarise themselves with iXBRL software.

However, a spokesman at HMRC said there are more than 30 IT providers who have already delivered iXBRL software. HMRC has also assured tax advisers any difficulty with filing will be treated sympathetically if they have taken "reasonable steps to comply".

The letter to Gauke was signed by representatives from CIoT, ACCA, ICAS, ATT, ICAEW and the AAT.

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