Audit exemptions to be extended from 1 October

The government will press ahead with its plan to align mandatory audit thresholds with accounting thresholds for small companies from 1 October.

In a press release issued on 6 September, the Department of Business Innovation and Skills confirmed that small businesses will not need to subject their accounts to an audit if they meet two out of the three qualifying criteria for small company accounts:

• Fewer than 50 employees
• Balance sheet total: no more than £3.26m
• Turnover below £6.5m.

Facebook shares fell 11% in after-hours trade after it reported its first results since its flotation in May.

The results were slightly ahead of analysts' expectations. Second quarter revenues rose 32% to $1.18bn (£751m) and it reported a $157m loss.

But concerns remain Facebook is yet to work out how to make money from people using the site on mobile devices.

The UK's tax authorities should prosecute more people for alcohol smuggling, a committee of MPs says.

The Public Accounts Committee says there were no more than six successful prosecutions each year, in the four years to 2009-10.

HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) estimates that as much as £1.2bn in tax is uncollected each year on smuggled beer and spirits.

But HMRC said a new anti-fraud strategy was leading to more prosecutions.

• Accountancy Services

• Tax returns

• Payroll

• Bookkeeping

• Tax Savings and Tax Advice

• Sole Traders

• Partnerships

• Limited Companies

• Personal Tax Payers.
  

Tax Rates and Thresholds

Income tax

 Personal allowance: the personal allowance will be increased by £1,000 to £7,475 from 6April 2011. The basic rate limit, or threshold at which higher rate tax is payable, will be reduced so that higher rate taxpayers do not benefit from the increase in the personal allowance. The reduction in personal allowance for those with income over £100,000, which came into effect from 6 April 2010, will continue.

The amount of extra tax obtained from some wealthy taxpayers has shot up by 360% in the past five years. Enquiries by a special unit of HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) gathered an extra £373m in tax in 2008-09, up from just £81m in 2004-05. The figures were obtained from the tax authorities by the law firm McGrigors, using the Freedom of Information Act. McGrigors said the Revenue unit had focused on rich taxpayers, including foreigners living in the UK.

The number of people unemployed in the UK has fallen slightly, figures show. Total unemployment stood at 2.46 million for the three months to December, down 3,000 on the figure for the previous three months. But long-term unemployment, covering those out of work for more than a year, rose by 37,000 to 663,000, the highest figure since 1997. And the number of people claiming Jobseeker's Allowance climbed by 23,500 to 1.64 million in January.

The global economy may recover earlier than first thought, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) has said.

But it said the UK economy would shrink by 4.7% this year, compared with its earlier forecast of a 4.3% contraction.

That is also worse than the 3.5% decline the UK Treasury has predicted.

The OECD expects both the US and the eurozone to exit recession in the third quarter, saying developments in recent months had been "mostly favourable".

The BBC's economics editor, Stephanie Flanders, said the new forecast for the UK was due to revised estimates of growth from previous quarters.

"The fall in the growth figure for 2009 is entirely driven by revisions to fourth-quarter 2008 and first-quarter 2009 which the Office for National Statistics has made since June.

"The OECD's forecasts for the UK in the third and fourth quarters of 2009 are, in fact, slightly better than before," she said.

The worst of the UK's recession is over, according to the British Chambers of Commerce (BCC) business group, but talk of a recovery is premature.

Its report, based on a survey of 5,600 companies, found there had been "welcome progress" in confidence levels between April and June.

But the BCC still expects unemployment to reach 3.2 million by 2010.