More Irish accountants misbehaving - 'The whisper'

Following yesterday's post that:

'PricewaterhouseCoopers, one of Britain's largest accountancy firms, has launched an investigation after male staff at one of its branches in Ireland were found circulating emails where they rated the attractiveness of their female colleagues.'

I now read that:

'another KPMG associate maybe not using the best judgment, sharing his plans for putting the moves on a special lady friend with his mate over firm email.

...

From: John [redacted]
Sent: 22 October 2010 11:48
To: Ian [redacted]
Subject: RE: Wed

Alright next thurs, im gonna stick the head in. Just wait for the right moment. (When shes drunk) and she cant say no. Got this unreal technique for scoring aswel, called the whisper. I pretend im whispering in her ear and when shes not looking I just kiss her. The element of surprise throws then off and BOOM.'

Ah 'the whisper', what is it with Irish accountants?

6,5,7,7,6,9,6,7,8,7,7,7,7

The Telegraph explains that

'PricewaterhouseCoopers, one of Britain's largest accountancy firms, has launched an investigation after male staff at one of its branches in Ireland were found circulating emails where they rated the attractiveness of their female colleagues.'

And has the pictures.

Sexist swine, accountants!

We are well and truly screwed

Alex Masterley reports that:

"The ONS has announced that both RBS and Lloyds Banking Group will be reclassified as public sector from October 13 2008, when Government recapitalisation was agreed. Public sector finance statistics for January 2009 show that public debt currently stands at £703billion, which includes £50 billion from the bailout of Bradford and Bingley last year. According to some press reports, when the impact of Lloyds Banking Group and RBS are taken into account, the ONS predicts that the impact to public sector net debt could be between £1 trillion and £1.5trillion, which could bring the UK's total debt to more than £2 trillion.

This isn’t half of the story. The £700 billion of national debt excludes PFI, say £100 billion and about the same again in various other off-balance sheet wheezes such as Network Rail's debt and private sector pension protection. There are also about £1 trillion of public sector pension liabilities which are shown as liabilities elsewhere. For example in America, the government issues notional securities to a Federal pension fund, so that pensions are fully funded (albeit by a claim on the government), but the net effect is that the liability ends up being properly recorded as part of the National Debt. In the UK, the government hides its head in the sand.

Add to that that IAS accounting changes to RBS which means that their liabilities are no longer the trillion or so in RBS's 2007 accounts that the ONS probably considered but probably closer to £1.9 trillion.

So instead of the £2.2 trillion or so that the ONS is talking about, the real scale of true liabilities is actually around £4.3 trillion, or 300% of GDP."

This really is it, isn't it? The UK economy is about to collapse and it is not going to be pretty. Have you bought your generators? Are you stockpiling your fuel, your food, your bottled water? Have you taken your money out of the bank?

The return of 3/23?

The rumours that Gordon Brown and Alistair Darling may be reducing the VAT rate from 17.5% to 15% set me thinking about how this would or would not affect prices. Since most retail prices are quoted inclusive of VAT and are set at certain price points the decrease will probably make next to no difference for most retailers who will probably just take the extra 2.13% as extra profit, it might help offset the rumoured increases in taxation and the loss in turnover. Wholesale prices will be adjusted as most are quoted net of VAT "plus VAT at the prevailing rate", however as most businesses are Standard Rated for VAT any decrease in VAT will make no difference as it will be accounted for on the VAT return as a reduction in both input VAT and output VAT. There will be a timing difference as businesses mostly still operate on an accruals basis for VAT accounting and so will be reclaiming input VAT at the 17.5% rate whilst paying Output VAT at 15% BUT this still makes no difference to the business's profits.

The one big difference that I can see is that the magic fraction of "7/47" will revert back to "3/23"; accountants will understand what I mean... and will remember the "thrill" when it changed last time. Of course there might even be a system with multiple rates of VAT, with some goods at 15% and some at 17.5% and maybe some at 22%, but that prospect is just too exciting for words and will create much work for accountants and Sage software installers.

For may accountant friends

Harold Rosenbaum Chartered Accountant EXTREME...