The government lost three Brexit votes on 4 December 2018. One was to force the government to publish in full the legal advice it received from the attorney-general. This the government did the following morning. A second vote found the government in contempt of parliament for ignoring a previous vote to publish the attorney-general’s opinion....Read More

HMRC’s practice for voluntary tax returns is to be put on to a statutory footing. When a person files a tax return when not required to do so, it has been HMRC practice to treat it as if that had been submitted in response to a request to file a return. This avoids the strict...Read More

Two-thirds of actors, musicians and dancers in Britain earn less than £5,000 a year from their art, according to a survey by recruitment company Mandy Network. They have other jobs to help them survive. Only one in eight earns at least £20,000. The mean average of performing salaries is just £10,500 a year. One fifth...Read More

A pension scheme was not allowed to change its inflation index, the Supreme Court ruled on 7 November 2018. In deciding the matter for each case, the words used by the draftsman should be considered rather than the background facts, which may be of relevance for other forms of contract. The pension scheme indexed benefits...Read More

Baroness Trumpington died on 26 November 2018, aged 96. On being made a life peer in 1980 she successfully sponsored a bill relaxing laws on shopping hours, saying that shops should themselves determine when they will open. She served as a junior minister for health and social security in the 1980s and 1990s, becoming the...Read More

Viagogo must disclose whether tickets offered are being sold by touts. This follows a legal victory in November 2018 against the company by the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA). CMA started its action in August 2018. Viagogo is the country’s largest ticket reselling website. Some venues have refused to give admittance to holders of resold...Read More

Penalties for failing to file employment intermediary returns for three periods were cancelled, as there was no evidence that an authorised officer of HMRC had made a determination. These returns are required by Income Tax (Earnings and Pensions) Act 2003 s716B when an agency or other intermediary provides the services of an employee but does...Read More

Charities should not collect used current postage stamps unless they are sure they are being passed on to collectors. On 30 November 2018, the Charity Commission said that many used stamps are then prepared for reuse as original stamps. Participating in such schemes is fraud. Ordinary postage stamps that have been used have negligible value to...Read More

The magazine Accountancy ceases to be a print magazine after the December 2018. This was once the house magazine for the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales. It was first published on 24 June 1889 as the Incorporated Accountants’ Journal and was the official organ of the Society of Accountants and Auditors. In that first issue, the...Read More