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After last week's 'media frenzy' one might be expecting a sense of relative calm to return. If, however, you're thinking of winding up a company and extracting accumulated profits in a tax-efficient manner, then you might just want to keep those skates on - the favourable tax treatment afforded by Extra-Statutory Concession C16 is due to close at the end of February but there is still time to make use of it even now - see Company Distributions on "Winding Up" - ESC C16 Still Works - For Now!

HM Revenue & Customs have also been keeping up the pace with their "campaigns", which have now moved on to electricians ( HM Revenue & Customs Warns Electricians: Don't Short Circuit Your Responsibility to Pay Tax ) with a warning that there will be further campaign work in the home improvement sector. For those who spotted the pun and have a thirst for more, then I can pretty much guarantee it will be slaked here: Press Release: Electricians Face Shock Treatment over Taxes. I lost count. I have no sense of humour when it comes to electricity. Rather, two hard learned lessons:

1. Never agree to change a light bulb after a night out, and
2. I can achieve quite a lofty vocal range whilst being electrocuted. Which I find quite novel - and hope will remain so.

Now that could be embarrassing. But arguably not as embarrassing as the government's seeming admission that there are dozens of its own highly paid executives apparently using company arrangements to handle their "remuneration", thereby allegedly to avoid suffering PAYE and NIC. And some press reports suggest that there could be many more. Which will come as no surprise to some agents, even if the so-called IR35 legislation should in theory put paid to such arrangements. (Of course that may well be an over-simplification). But I do wonder what the tally might be at HM Revenue & Customs itself: information about an IT contractor (of all things) to HMRC is already in the public domain. I suspect this story will run for some time.

Galileo, Galileo.

Regards all,

TWebEd