HMRC should take extreme care when taxing people retrospectively otherwise people lose confidence in our taxation system, says the CIoT.

Contractor accountants handling personal data need to ensure that data security is at the forefront of their minds.

A recent report on ITV’s Meridian Tonight has given an interesting insight into how freelancers and contractors are thriving in the traditional new media hotspot of Brighton & Hove.

That was the immediate reaction to Theresa May’s pronouncement on how the Coalition will be handling work visas as part of its attempts to reduce immigration: a fair start but not nearly limiting enough. While it was good to see positive efforts to reduce the influx of non-EU workers, there was a sense of disappointment that the ICT visas would not be included in the capped total.

My research has revealed a record breaking increase in the number of new contractors / limited company formations, which supports the theory of a new entrepreneurial culture developing to partly replace the traditional employment culture, as a result of the economic crisis.

The Internet now contributes 7.2% to the UK’s total GDP, according to research from the Boston Consulting Group. The report also shows that 250,000 people, including contractors, are employed in the sector.

Basic administrative tasks relating to bookkeeping, invoicing and billing and filling out timesheets take the average worker in the UK 37 days every year, according to Keboko, the cloud service provider.

Contractor accountants keeping tabs on the government’s plans for a Universal Credit system might be unsurprised to hear that might be delayed.

The Department of Works and Pensions has rejected EU proposals to set up a defined benefit pensions solvency regime.

The discussion about the Office of Tax Simplification is gaining momentum as the body itself starts to get fully organised. A fair range of interested parties have been discussing how they want to see things change. Naturally, for those of us who have lived with it for eleven years, a lot of this discussion has been about IR35.

The government is determined to get rid of quangos and yet advisory groups are already popping up around the small business regulations and tax issues that affect contractor accountants and their clients.

In what seems to be a contradiction of other recent reports, the latest quarterly job survey from the CIPD and KPMG claims that public sector redundancies will be more than offset by new private sector jobs.