Gross lending tumbled to £19.3 billion last month from £30.7 billion in September, while total repayments fell to £18.2 billion from £20.6 billion.  Net borrowing using mortgage debt tumbled to £1.6 billion in October, down from £9.3 billion in the previous month, according to the Bank of England. However, deposits with banks, building societies and National Savings and Investments rose by £6.4 billion in October, compared with an average of £11.9 billion in the 12 months to September.  The lending figure was the lowest since July when borrowers repaid £2.2 billion of their mortgage debt and were driven by homeowners bringing forward borrowing to September to take advantage of a reduction in stamp duty on higher-priced properties. Net borrowing in October was £4.6 billion below the 12-month average for the period when the full stamp duty holiday was in effect.  Mortgage approvals for house purchase — a gauge of future borrowing — fell to 67,200 last month, compared with 71,900 in Septe

  Allium Law’s “Back British Business” campaign says it can help directors who are struggling to repay emergency credit taken out during the height of the pandemic because small companies were “misled” over the loans.  Allium, owned by Steve Clark, a hedge fund financier, purchased specific Child & Child assets via pre-pack insolvency in 2019, with five equity partners from the failed company moving across to the “newco”, including the former co-owner Mo Hakim.  For a fee of £550, Back British Business is offering to draft legal letters to banks for borrowers who want a write-off or reduction in liabilities or a set-off against their losses and says it will escalate complaints to the Financial Ombudsman Service and the government on borrowers’ behalf if necessary.  The campaign, whose chief executive has dismissed comparisons with “ambulance-chasing PPI claims”, expects interest to pick up further when many borrowers begin making capital repayments next year.  The government’s Inso

  Efforts to counter fraud on the government’s Covid-19 programmes to support companies have so far led to more than 60 arrests and the recovery of more than £3.5m. Lenders also told the government they had prevented fraud of more than £2bn, the report says.  The extent of the losses are still lower than initially expected, with an official estimate last year suggesting the government’s loan schemes for companies during the coronavirus crisis could cost taxpayers between £18bn and £26bn.  Overall losses on all state-backed Covid-19 loans — due to companies being unable to afford to repay, plus fraud and error — are likely to amount to almost £20bn, said the annual report by the business department.      Taxpayers face losses of almost £5bn from fraudsters who exploited minimal checks around the government’s Covid-19 bounce back loan scheme for small companies, according to the first official estimate. As much as £29m was recognised in the report for suspected fraudulent payments involv

Accountants say that they are stuck in a “big black hole of frustration” as they wait for their clients to get the unique taxpayer reference code they need to sign up to self-assessment. The Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales, which has more than 150,000 members, warns that thousands will miss the January 31 deadline for returns for the 2020-21 tax year because of huge delays in processing requests for the codes.   The institute said you could use a workaround to pay tax without filing a return, using your national insurance number, but said that you may need professional accountancy software to make sure you did it right.  Claire Roberts from the accountancy firm Moore Kingston Smith warned against trying the workaround: “The only way you could realistically go through a manual approach is to engage a professional accountant who can use their own software to calculate your tax bill based on your earnings.  If you file your tax return late, you could be fined £100,

  Factories turned out 64,729 vehicles last month, down by 41.4 per cent compared with a year ago, in what were "historically poor production numbers", according to the SMMT. (Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders). The SMMT believes factories are on track in 2021 to produce fewer than one million vehicles for a second consecutive year before getting back above the one million level next year and rising to a potential 1.2 million in 2024.  Overall production for the UK market was down 38 per cent; new cars going abroad dropped by 42 per cent.  The SMMT's latest figures show production this year is almost 3 per cent lower than 2020, at 721,505 cars.  "With Covid resurgent across some of our largest markets and global supply chains stretched and even breaking, the immediate challenges in keeping the industry operational are immense."  According to SMMT's Chief executive Mike Hawes, those measures could include "tackling high energy costs, supporting

    Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s defence of recent interest rate cuts and declaration of an “economic war of independence” have sent the lira plunging and left analysts wondering how far Turkey’s president is willing to let the currency fall.  The foreign exchange component of central government debt hit 60 per cent of the total last month from 39 per cent in 2017.  Ankara appears to have a “tolerance for a weakening lira”, said Enver Erkan, an analyst at Terra Investment, adding that it was hard to predict how far policymakers would be willing to let it fall.  Analysts say dollar holdings could rise further, piling more pressure on the lira and creating a vicious cycle in which savers pull their cash, as was the case on a limited scale during the summer 2018 currency crisis.  But with the lira falling 15 per cent at one point on Tuesday, analysts warn the volatility could smother growth and that Erdogan’s approach could imperil the economy and fuel public discontent. Foreign currency deposi

  The euro has weakened against the US dollar since the beginning of 2021, from around US$1.23 to its current exchange rate of US$1.13. By contrast, countries in the eurozone face a period of greater political instability. So while short-term currency movements are challenging to predict, there are many reasons to believe that the recent period of euro weakness will continue. Indeed, the Fed has recently started “tapering” or slowing down the rate of QE to stop it in the second half of 2022. On the other hand, the ECB has been discussing a replacement for its US$2.2 trillion (£1.7 trillion) QE programme when it ends in March 2022. A final driver of the recent strength of the dollar is more excellent political stability. The drop has also intensified in November, falling 3% since the turn of a month, which has seen violence in European capitals over COVID restrictions, migrant problems at the Belarus-Poland border and Russian troops massing on the border of Ukraine. The question of whet

  White House officials announced Tuesday that the administration will release government reserves of oil as Republicans repeatedly slam President Biden for high gas prices ahead of the holiday season. The administration said the Department of Energy would release 50 million barrels of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve — an emergency pool kept by the U.S. — in conjunction with several other countries. While energy experts have consistently said a release of U.S. reserves would likely do little to lower gas prices, the White House said the effort would be undertaken “in parallel” with similar efforts by China, India, Japan, the Republic of Korea, and the United Kingdom. Average U.S. gas prices stood at $3.41 as of Monday, according to AAA, with costs even higher in some parts of the country such as Pennsylvania and Nevada. It is unclear how much the White House effort would immediately affect prices. Oil prices have begun to tick down independent of the administration’s efforts,

  Rank Group secured a VAT refund of more than £80 million on slot machine takings. The VAT claim, which Rank took to the First-tier Tribunal Tax Chamber in May last year, relates to machine income collected by Rank from April 2006 to January 2013. Rank said that interest was also due on the claim, expected to amount to £5.5 million.  Rank said that the issue was “whether certain amusement machines were similar to fixed-odds betting terminals and online games, which were exempt from VAT during the period”. However, when the act first came into force, the VAT exemption for fixed-odds betting terminals was removed yet remained in place for similar casino machines. Nevertheless, the Grosvenor Casinos and Mecca Bingo operator said that it had reached an agreement with HM Revenue & Customs on a rebate of £77.5 million, which it expects to receive shortly.  Before the 2005 Gambling Act, the machines were not subject to VAT as they were liable to pay gambling duty.       Rank successfully

According to the EY Item Club's latest forecast, rising inflation and supply chain disruption mean that the economy will grow at a slower pace than expected this year and next. However, the group expects the Bank of England's monetary policy committee to increase the interest rate to 0.25 per cent at its meeting in February rather than next month. However, the report suggests the economy has bounced back from its 9.7 per cent contraction in 2020. The report also cut its forecast for consumer spending, which had been expected to rise by 4.8 per cent this year and by 7.4 per cent next year, to 3.9 per cent and 6.8 per cent, respectively. It said that it expected inflation to peak at nearly 5 per cent early next year, higher than the 3.5 per cent it had forecast in July, and to remain above 3 per cent until the second half of the year. The economy will grow by 6.9 per cent this year, and by 5.6 per cent next year, it said in its autumn forecast. This is down from its July predicti

  A total of 170 jobs will be created in Northern Ireland by one of the world’s biggest packaging companies, the latest business seeking to exploit the region’s “best of both worlds” post-Brexit trading status. Ardagh Metal Packaging yesterday announced plans to build a $200m beverage can plant near Belfast, from which drinks will be exported both to Britain and EU markets. Luxembourg-based Ardagh, which has origins in glassmaking in Dublin, said its “state of the art” plant would service “the growing needs of AMP’s beverage customers in Ireland, the UK and Europe”.  Last year, Michael Gove, secretary of state for levelling up, said businesses in Northern Ireland would get “the best of both worlds” under the protocol, and many employers want the Brexit arrangement to continue.  Oliver Graham, chief executive of AMP, said: “We are delighted to be investing in Northern Ireland, supporting our clients’ sustainability needs and further reducing our carbon footprint by locating closer to ou

HMRC is warning businesses to submit research and development (R&D) claims as soon as possible to avoid a delay in receiving payments between December and January A short review, Projects that count as R&D The work that qualifies for R&D relief must be part of a specific project to make an advance in science or technology. It cannot be an advance within a social science - like economics - or a theoretical field - such as pure maths. The project must relate to your company’s trade - either an existing one, or one that you intend to start up based on the results of the R&D. To get R&D relief you need to explain how a project: looked for an advance in science and technology had to overcome uncertainty tried to overcome this uncertainty could not be easily worked out by a professional in the field Your project may research or develop a new process, product or service or improve on an existing one. Types of R&D relief Small and medium sized enterprises (SME) R&D

Tony Danker, director-general of the CBI, will use its annual conference to urge the government to be more ambitious with its growth targets and deal with an absence of policies needed to achieve Boris Johnson’s ambition for a “high-wage, high-skill, high-growth” economy.  In an interview with The Times, Danker, 49, said that the country was “going back to a 2008 storm” when, soon after pledges were made to transform the economy after the financial crisis, “we started arguing politically, we had an MP scandal crisis, and everybody just got on with business as usual, and the economy flatlined for a decade”.  Danker said that the prime minister was “betting the shop” on the private sector delivering his agenda around net-zero and levelling up but that he needed to “seize the moment” and “start to make bigger bets.      The government’s economic growth targets and policies on skills, investment and productivity are “nowhere near bold enough”, the head of Britain’s most prominent business

 In the first seven months of the financial year the government borrowed £127.3 billion, down £103.4 billion compared to the same period last year but also the second largest on record. Borrowing is expected to reach £183 billion by the end of the financial year in April, down £140.1 billion from last year.  Britain borrowed £18.8 billion last month, which was down only £200 million on October last year and the second-highest reading for that month on record. Debt costs climbed to £5.6 billion last month, an increase of £3.8 billion from a year ago. City economists had expected public sector borrowing to fall to £13.8 billion, down from £21 billion in September. Receipts rose 6.2 per cent, or £3.8 billion, to £65.5 billion last month. The end of the government’s furlough and job support schemes resulted in spending dropping from £1.3 billion in September to only £200 million in October.  “Public borrowing is falling much less quickly than earlier this year, reflecting the slowing of th

 Shares in Metro Bank have plunged 97 per cent from their 2018 peak, leaving it with a market value of just £200m, but one private equity executive who has studied the company said it was still “not cheap enough” to offer the kind of returns that buyout groups typically seek. The New York-based buyout group, which approached Metro Bank about a possible takeover this month, said yesterday that it had “agreed to terminate discussions”.      Private equity group Carlyle has pulled out of talks to acquire Metro Bank, the latest blow to a company once hailed as a challenger to the handful of lenders that dominate British retail banking.  Metro Bank’s commitment to building branches as established lenders are closing theirs has looked increasingly out of step with the wider industry, especially as the pandemic has driven digital adoption. When they did, the UK’s takeover regulator imposed a December 2 deadline to announce a firm intention to bid or walk away, leaving the buyout group with li

 Andreas Schwab, the EPP MEP leading the negotiations over the Digital Markets Act, said: “I am satisfied that the parliament is sending a united message to the market, which is ‘game over with unfair business practices in digital markets’.” The proposed rules will also boost the power of national competition authorities to scrutinise tech companies’ acquisitions of smaller rivals, following fears they are buying competitors on the cheap to “kill” challengers.  “The political wind is behind these set of new rules,” said a person directly involved in the discussions. The European parliament’s main political parties agreed a deal that would apply to companies with a market capitalisation of at least €80bn that offer at least one internet service, such as online search, according to four people with direct knowledge of the discussions. The centre-right European People’s party, whose members include the party of Germany chancellor Angela Merkel and European Commission president Ursula von

  You should read this factsheet if you may be jointly and severally liable for the relevant tax liability of a company that has been involved in tax avoidance or evasion. We’ll tell you if you’re jointly and severally liable by giving you a joint liability notice. There is more information about joint liability notices in the section ‘What is a joint liability notice’. Where this factsheet refers to a ‘company’, this could also mean a ‘limited liability partnership’. Where this factsheet refers to ‘directors’, this means one of the following, a: director – as set out in section 250 of the Companies Act 2006 shadow director – as set out in section 251 of the Companies Act 2006 participator – as set out in section 454 of the Corporation Tax Act 2010 This factsheet at a glance This factsheet tells you: what to do if you need extra support about joint and several liability what a joint liability notice is that we may give you a joint liability notice if certain conditions are met that if