Philip Fisher

1 week ago | accountingweb.co.uk | Philip Fisher

For some reason, our profession continues to be the beneficiary of great good fortune. Rather than suffering under the burden of a damning Panorama-style in-depth investigation, the worst that the BBC has inflicted on accountants is the cruel but bearable satire of Monty Python’s Flying Circus. If ever a serious team of investigative journalists chose to focus on professional standards and performance, we might never recover.

1 week ago | britishtheatreguide.info | Philip Fisher

Sometimes, journalists receive press releases that leave them reaching for a pinch of salt. Ticket selling web site London Theatre Direct claims that, following a large-scale study, it has “identified the musical blueprint behind the songs that have helped define the stage.” The study analysed more than 2,000 tracks from 100 of the most significant musicals of all time and attempted to classify them against a series of somewhat imponderable measures.

2 weeks ago | accountingweb.co.uk | Philip Fisher

Whoever thought tax could be sexy? Apparently, that is the conclusion the BBC reached when scourge of tax fiddlers, Dan Neidle pitched them Untaxing a series built around our favourite subject. You can understand why, when you read the blurb on the BBC website. How could even a layman resist the temptations hinted at? “Albert Einstein called tax ‘the hardest thing in the world to understand’ – but was he right?

2 weeks ago | britishtheatreguide.info | Philip Fisher

Michael Sheen is fast transforming himself into an enthusiastic philanthropist. Although his recent TV appearances have caused controversy, very few on the western side of the Severn Bridge will have anything but praise for the actor’s determined efforts to boost Wales’s profile. His latest venture came to fruition with the launch of the Welsh National Theatre earlier this week.

2 weeks ago | accountingweb.co.uk | Philip Fisher

As predicted, when HMRC issued a document entitled “Closing in on promoters of marketed tax avoidance,” accountants angrily responded with the tried and tested mantra that “tax avoidance is legal”. This draws us into an instant bone of contention since, in far too many cases, the term “tax avoidance” is bandied about to describe and “legalise” transactions that are ultimately seen to have overstepped the mark.