Sherie Griffiths

May 12, 2010

Happy Birthday To Us For Yesterday

First, an apology for the complete lack of posts last week. I blame the Bank Holiday – and clients, who will insist on taking priority over everything else, for some strange reason. Anyone would think they’re paying for the privilege!!! Seriously, though, client work is my favourite part of this job.

What were you doing a year ago yesterday? Can you remember? I can – vividly. I was launching a company. I spent most of Monday 11th May ’09 getting ready for the launch party in the evening and stressing about whether all my colleagues would get to the venue on time – and even more about whether we would have enough guests.

I needn’t have worried. My team, who had all agreed to present with me and had each gone several extra miles to make that happen. Were all present and correct by 5.45 – by which time the Wine Tun, by St Paul’s cathedral, was filling up nicely.

For me, that was an incredible evening – the reward for so much hard work, by everyone concerned and the realisation of more than one personal dream. All too often we don’t enjoy our own parties – but I did that night! I even broke my own rule about never drinking before a presentation. I don’t think you can tell I’d been on the champagne, can you? The uniformed waiters, walking around with trays of food and drink, were so polite and attentive, it seemed rude to refuse – well, that’s my excuse and I’m sticking to it!

As I wrote to one of my co-presenters last night, ‘12 months
on, the company isn’t where I thought it would be – but it’s somewhere a lot more
promising. Off to have a glass of wine to celebrate that fact!’

The coming year looks to be a busy one, for us as a company and for me personally, with the book coming out in the next few months (more of which later), our new ‘podzine’ beginning in June (more of that later too) and all those clients getting in the way of my writing blog posts – as well as some other new projects in the offing –Yes, ‘promising’ certainly describes our upcoming second year. If I weren’t drafting this before 7:00 AM, I’d drink to that …

March 1, 2010

Business Group urges Government to scrap national insurance increase

From: Branston Adams (Chartered & Certified Accountants) – http://www.branstonadams.co.uk

An incoming Government must concentrate its efforts on reducing the budget deficit,
and should scrap the planned increase in national insurance contributions (NICs),
according to the British Chambers of Commerce (BCC).
The latest monthly survey from the business group revealed that 41% of companies
believe reducing the deficit should be the Government’s number one priority, while
many also believe that an increase in NICs represents the most damaging tax rise
that could be imposed on them.
36% of those surveyed felt that a VAT increase would be the least damaging to their
business, compared with just 6.6% who selected NICs as the more favourable option.
Meanwhile, the business group has used the Treasury’s Tax Ready Reckoner to calculate
that increasing VAT by 1% to 18.5% would raise an extra £4.5bn in revenue, compared
with the £5.1bn that would be netted by a rise in NICs. The BCC argues that the difference
between the two sums could be offset by targeted spending cuts.
David Frost, BCC Director General, said, ‘Companies have and will continue to play
their part in creating wealth and jobs, generating economic growth and driving recovery,
but the right environment needs to be in place’.
‘Raising a damaging tax on business, like NICs, will be counter-productive. It will
mean fewer jobs and less tax revenue in the long-term. While businesses fully understand
the need to bring down the UK’s deficit, they are clearly saying that using VAT would
be a less damaging way to achieve this.’

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