With artificial intelligence (AI) and automation threatening to change the face of the accounting profession, Kirsty Godfrey-Billy, chief accounting officer at Xero, asks how technology will reduce repetitive tasks and improve controls

The Ministry of Defence (MOD) is to compensate thousands of military personnel based in Scotland against being left out of pocket because of differences between the Scottish tax regime and that used elsewhere in the UK, with top-up payments to be made each year

HMRC has amended legislation to shut down a VAT avoidance scheme in which financial services exploit current rules using offshore looping

Large companies will be required to adopt a streamlined energy and carbon reporting (SECR) framework from April 2019 which will see them include details of energy use, carbon emissions and their energy efficiency measures in their annual report, as part of the government’s drive for business and industry to cut energy use by at least 20% by 2030

Two former trustees, one of whom was an accountant, have been disqualified following a joint agency investigation and a Charity Commission inquiry which found serious misconduct and mismanagement in the charities they were running

Deloitte is to create a new entity, Deloitte Asia Pacific, bringing together its geographies in Australia, China, Japan, New Zealand and Southeast Asia, with the aim of increasing its services and presence in the region, which it says is the fastest-growing area of its network

BDO South Africa has announced it is to merge with Grant Thornton Johannesburg, with the aim of creating the country’s leading mid-tier audit firm

A Gloucester security services company director, who was jailed for a £497,000 tax fraud, must pay back £67,424 or face another two years in jail and still owe the money