In a scathing review of the Financial Reporting Council (FRC), Sir John Kingman has called for the standard setter and audit regulator to be closed in its present form with immediate replacement by a new oversight authority with regulatory powers set in statute

A majority of MEPs in the European parliament have signalled support for amendments to the proposed tax on digital services to include companies such as Netflix and lower the taxable revenue threshold to include more companies

HMRC is to continue rolling out Making Tax Digital (MTD) for VAT but has warned that the wider extension of the MTD programme for businesses will be delayed as IT developers are refocused on Brexit customs delivery

Launching the Wates corporate governance code for large private companies, James Wates praised the work done but admitted that the future involvement of the Financial Reporting Council (FRC) was overshadowed by the impending publication of the Kingman review into the regulator

The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has announced a range of reforms to the investment consultancy sector, following a market investigation undertaken at the request of the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA)

The European Commission has announced new measures, due to come into force in January 2021, which will allow for a smooth transition to an updated VAT structure for dealing with online selling and will make online marketplaces liable for VAT not recovered by tax authorities

A debate over whether sustainability reporting should be mandated and organised by independent bodies or left for the markets heard broad agreement that such reporting should be done, but faced strong rejection of any compulsory requirement

The president of CIOT, Ray McCann, has told the Treasury sub-committee that the government’s approach to tackling disguised remuneration was ‘worse than retrospective legislation’ in that it removed the legal protections provided to taxpayers

CIOT has warned that a number of minor changes to Finance Bill 2018-19 (FB 2018-19) risk undermining the consistency depended on by taxpayers, reducing confidence and affecting international competitiveness

Appearing before the Treasury committee, Chancellor Philip Hammond discussed the potential impact of a ‘no deal’ Brexit and what preparations the Treasury and other government departments were making to reduce the impact on taxpayers

A survey of tax professionals’ attitudes and company readiness for Making Tax Digital (MTD) for VAT shows that companies and accountants are lagging behind in their preparations and 70% are waiting for future announcements until they commit to a process

The EU Economic and Financial Affairs Council (ECOFIN) has discussed the implementation of a digital services tax, with representatives disagreeing on how such a tax would work in practice and some countries calling for a delay until the OECD reaches a solution

The government has issued more guidance to EU-funded non-profit programmes and charities on what they can expect if the UK leaves the bloc without a deal and how they can maintain continuity of funding under the Cabinet Office guarantee

Sports Direct founder Mike Ashley has claimed that the high street is ‘already dead’ due to the impact of the internet on consumers, and that the only way to redress the balance would be to institute a 20% tax on online sales and massive cuts to business rates

The EU committee on economic and monetary affairs has voted in favour of a proposed amendment to the EU VAT directive, allowing member states struggling with fraud to temporarily change the way it is recovered