A blacklist of public sector IT contractors should be drawn up to identify those whose past pledges of value for money were just spin, a Labour MP is urging.

On 27th October a new ISA limit came into force for the over 50’s which allows you to invest up to £10,200 in a tax efficient ISA. In booming markets this gives baby boomers the chance to cash in before the new limit is rolled out to all investors in April 2010.

Taxpayers have good reason to fear investigation by HM Revenue & Customs. Now Daniel Dover, a partner at accountants BDO Stoy Hayward LLP, and financial writer Tim Hindle have written a book – ‘The Taxman Always Rings Twice’ – explaining the process, showing what is at stake and how to get through it. Here are their 10 golden rules:

HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) have been exasperated for many years by the way the construction industry behave as if the rules on paying workers gross don’t apply to them.

The UK minimum wage will rise by 7p to £5.80 an hour from 1st October, the government has announced.

The rate for 18 to 21-year-olds will increase by 6p to £4.83 and for 16 and 17-year-olds will go up by 4p to £3.57.

The Treasury have now produced their consultative document promised in the last budget on what they like to call ‘False Self Employment’ in the Construction Industry.

It is clearly an attempt to extract more money out of the industry. They have estimated that of the 860,000 self employed subcontractors in the UK 300,000 have been wrongly described as self employed and if these workers were re-classified as employees the Treasury would benefit to the sum of £350 million per year.