There are nearly 11 million workers aged between 35 and 49 in the UK and yet they have missed out on the 350,000 new job opportunities created in 2010.

Contractor accountants and other professional freelancers must be prepared for financial changes, especially in these times of economic uncertainty.

Owners of SMEs should talk to their employees about ways of reducing costs rather than spying on them, new research findings suggest.

HMRC has decided to rethink its policy of just sending documents to taxpayers and not their agents. The new policy, which was introduced in September, was designed as a cost saving measure.

And, I have to say, quite a successful one, perhaps unexpectedly given where we started from. Speaking strictly as a freelance contractor of course, I thought it appropriate to round off 2010 with my slightly biased view of how the year has gone. So here goes with a very personal summary of the key events.

More businesses closed than started up in 2009, according to recently released statistics from the ONS.

On the 13rd December, the Office of Tax Simplification published its interim review of 13 reliefs, providing some light reading for online accountants.

Contractors could be amongst those set to benefit from internal skills shortages at UK firms as we go into 2011.

SMEs could find that trading overseas is the best way to survive the economic downturn, according to Mark Prisk, the enterprise minister.

This year, for the first time in 13 years, we were saved the interminable and ultimately disingenuous dirge that was the Pre Budget Report. Mr Brown and latterly Mr Darling’s attempts to justify what they were planning to do in the real budget with no real connection to reality is no more, happily.

Contractor accountants and other freelancers are becoming more enterprising and creating opportunities for themselves according to figures released by the CIPD.

Families will no longer be able to avoid inheritance tax by placing their properties into trust under new disclosure requirements which are set to come into force next April.