Latest figures released by the Office for National Statistics have revealed that during May, factory output rose by 1.2 percent compared to April’s figures; whilst the overall industrial output increased by one percent for the same period.
The Office for National Statistics have also revealed within the latest figures, that out of just over a dozen categories in manufacturing, eight rose in May and five declined, compared to the previous month.
Despite the figures providing a welcome boost to the UK economy, the Office for National Statistics have warned that May and June’s figures should be taken with caution, as the government had moved the UK’s annual public holiday at the end of May for the Queen’s Jubilee; and also added an extra holiday in June.
The warning from the Office for National Statistics was also echoed by one economist, who said: “It’s a very good number, but it’s entirely because of the extra day during the month. Underneath it all, it is hard to say what the underlying path of manufacturing is.”
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HMRC have announced that they are set to extend their Real Time Information (RTI) programme, further from today (July 9th).
RTI was originally launched in April of this year to a select few businesses and pension providers, before being extended at the beginning of May.
As part of the pilot scheme, those businesses and pension providers currently taking part are required to provide HMRC with details of any PAYE changes when they happen, rather than at the end of the tax year.
It is hoped that the scheme will be rolled out by October next year; and with HMRC continuing to be happy with the progress of the pilot, they have revealed that a further 1,000 businesses will be joining the pilot programme between now and the end of September 2012.
Acting Director General for Personal Tax, Stephen Banyard, said of the scheme: “RTI is on track and the pilot is going very well. We started in April with just 10 employers and now we’ve successfully received over 1.7 million individual records from 338 PAYE schemes.
“Following the success of the first pilot stage, more PAYE schemes will join the RTI pilot, as planned, and by the end of September up to 1,300 employer schemes will be reporting PAYE in real time.
“We are also seeing external confidence in the pilot and we’ve responded to that by offering more large employers, payroll bureaux, new employers and software developers the opportunity to join the RTI pilot or to expand existing involvement in advance of the launch date in April 2013.”
For more information, please visit www.milsted-langdon.co.uk
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The Bank of England’s new financial risk watchdog has said it will be able to support economic growth alongside its primary aim of ensuring financial stability.
From next year, the Bank of England is set to take over most British financial regulations; with the support of their watchdogs; and the FPC's main role is to stop credit booms getting out of control and to monitor risks that cut across individual banks and threaten the financial system as a whole.
Last month, the Chancellor George Osborne announced that he wanted the Financial Policy Committee (FPC) to support government economic policies in the same way its Monetary Policy Committee does.
Although there had been some uncertainty about whether the FPC’s members thought having to take growth into account would distract from their main role; a record of their June 22 meeting showed that the policymakers did not see that there would be a major conflict.
The record is reported to say: “It was noted that the primary objective to protect and enhance resilience and the new secondary objective were compatible.
“Indeed, the committee's recommendations... over the past year had been specifically designed to build resilience while supporting lending and growth.”
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It has been revealed that taxpayers may no longer be able to appeal against shock tax bills by claiming they had no reasonable way of knowing they were paying too little.
Currently, the Extra Statutory Concession, A19, allows underpaid tax to be cancelled if taxpayers had reasonable belief they had paid the right amount.
However, under new proposals, HMRC plan to re-write the controversial rule which has let over 40,000 taxpayers in the past year have income tax and National Insurance underpayments – worth an estimated £54 million – written off.
It has been suggested that the majority of underpayments are as a result of a wrong tax code – normally because someone has changed jobs or started taking a pension.
Moving forward, HMRC want to impose stiffer tests on taxpayers, which will make them responsible for checking their own tax code and for notifying the taxman of any changes in their circumstances.
Under the proposals, if taxpayers have not made the appropriate checks, they will not be able to apply to have shock tax bills cancelled.
For more information, please visit www.milsted-langdon.co.uk
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After the government’s chief construction advisor claimed that pension funds were unlikely to invest in billions of pounds of new infrastructure projects, it is feared the Chancellor’s growth strategy could be “in tatters.”
In November last year, the Chancellor announced plans to raise £20 billion from pension funds, to help pay for five-hundred building projects; in a bid to prevent the country sliding back into recession.
However, the government’s chief construction advisor, Paul Morrell – who is due to step down later this year – has said the government would need to come up with a guarantee that would underwrite the development risk in new products.
Speaking earlier this week, Mr Morrell said: “I think it’s a pretty common view that there won’t be a barrel-load of funding coming in from pension funds for Greenfield new infrastructure. It’s not their business and I don’t know anyone who thinks it is.
“I’m sure pension funds will come for Brownfield developments – assets that are already built and earning. But with debt-funded projects, it’s a different story. The pension funds don’t like them. It will be a while before there is the £20 billion investment in new infrastructure.”
Last week it was revealed that the Treasury was considering a plan under which banks would agree to underwrite any losses involved in the construction of new infrastructure in exchange for a fixed-fee paid by future project revenues; whilst pension funds have also suggested they will pull together to raise funds to invest in new infrastructure.
So far they have only agreed to set up a fund of £2 billion, which may be launched next year; and Mr Morrell has said that they will need to develop skills to assess projects.
For more information, please visit www.milsted-langdon.co.uk
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