• Strengthening the devolution settlement in Scotland.
• Increasing the financial accountability of the Scottish Parliament.
• Renewing the policy responsibility split between the UK and Scottish Parliament.
• Improving the relationship between the UK Government and Scottish Ministers

This may well see the Scottish parliament given further revenue raising powers and could see the subject of the Scottish variable rate of tax back on the agenda. For those employers with nationwide workforces this will be a big issue. It will also impact the software developers too as we will see tax codes prefixed with an ‘S’ to indicate that the individual is classed as a scottish taxpayer. Originally, this was proposed to be determined by days of residence in Scotland in a tax year.

I think it’s time to revisit my old discussions with HM Revenue & Customs on Scottish tax and also how the other recommendations of the Calman Commission, that this Bill is intending to implement, would impact on employers. Watch this space for an article that brings you up to speed

Scottish variable rate tax – back on the agenda? is a post from Advanced Business Solutions - Supplier of accounting software, business intelligence and document managment

The changes to our systems are relatively minor compared to some of the changes required to operational and front office systems.  Our many retail clients, for example, have to consider how and when to actually introduce the (effective) price change to their products, bearing in mind standard price points as well as the time of year.  There are also issues to consider with documents that go across the rate change date as well as interfaces with third party systems.  Our trade association BASDA has published a useful list of issues to be considered – http://www.basda.org/HMRC-exclusive-briefing-for-BASDA-members-re-VAT-changes-247.htm.

We set up a page of information this week containing advice and guidance for each of our systems, as well as guidance papers released by HMRC.  Of note, our website had its greatest number of visitors ever on Thursday (over 1,000 visitors), with over 800 downloads of the documents that we put there over the last two days.

A lot of work for us, but a mass of work for our clients. So no, we don’t love you, Mr Darling.

We don’t love you, Darling is a post from Advanced Business Solutions - Supplier of accounting software, business intelligence and document managment

Of interest to COA Solutions is the pronouncement that VAT will decrease to 15% as of “next Monday, December 1^st”.  This requires a number of very quick changes to be made to financial systems, putting rates down from 17.5% to 15% and considering the implications for partially-rated VAT.  We will be putting a briefing paper on our customer portal shortly, advising all our users how this pre-budget report will affect them and what changes they should be considering.

Amidst all this pre-Christmas cheer (extra money for all!), we continue to provide solutions for our clients aimed at reducing costs and improving processes and competitiveness.  As organisations continue to look at the real cost of employment and consider the possibilities of restructuring, we provide a graphical overview of how pre-defined KPIs can help your organisation move forward.  Click here to view this new, fully interactive overview of Corporate Analytics.

If you are having trouble borrowing money at the current time, at least you can find out where you can save money internally!

All change with Mr Darling is a post from Advanced Business Solutions - Supplier of accounting software, business intelligence and document managment