A look back at the most read stories on eprivateclient this week...
Monday
Tax specialists Andersen in the UK appointed Andrew Park as a tax investigations partner. In this role, he will provide specialist advice in providing solutions to tax problems and resolving investigations and voluntary disclosures with HMRC. Mr Park joined the firm from AMP Tax Dispute Resolution, having previously worked at BDO for over 23 years.
A Court of Appeal ruling confirmed that the success fee element of conditional fee agreements (CFAs) can be recovered as part of an award under the Inheritance (Provision for Family and Dependants) Act 1975. The appeal concerned the recent case of Re Hirachand (Deceased), where the deceased’s estranged daughter was awarded a share of her father’s estate, despite not being a beneficiary of his Will.
Tuesday
Barnet has the highest volume of estates hit by Inheritance Tax (IHT) in the UK, according to new HMRC statistics unveiled in law firm Kingsley Napley’s IHT Premier League. Kensington and Chelsea topped the table for average value of IHT paid. However, it is not just London and the Home Counties that pay higher IHT. Stratford-upon-Avon, Winchester, Devon and Dorset were revealed to be hotspots too.
Pandemic pessimism has turned to optimism across the UK’s legal sector according to PwC’s 2021 Law Firms' Survey (LFS) which found that the majority of law firms reacted swiftly to embrace operational and market changes during a period of continued lockdowns to ultimately record strong positive financial results.
Wednesday
Global fiduciary services provider IQ-EQ hired Edwin Chan as its chief commercial officer for UK and Ireland - the latest in a series of senior new hires as the firm looks to fulfil its growth plans for the two jurisdictions. Mr Chan has over 20 years of experience helping launch and grow fund services businesses, including within international banks in London, Bermuda and Hong Kong, most recently working for Intertrust in London.
New research by RSM revealed that UK business leaders are not familiar with Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG). For those who are, nearly a quarter (24 percent) are not making any attempt to measure the potential impact that their ESG goals might have on the environment or society, and in turn the benefits a robust ESG approach could have on business and society.
Thursday
Publicly-listed fiduciary and corporate services provider JTC bought perfORM Due Diligence Services (perfORM), a provider of due diligence services to UK and international asset allocators and investment managers. Launched in 2019, perfORM was set up as an Operational Due Diligence (ODD) business to provide solutions to asset allocators such as pension funds, wealth managers, family offices, fund of funds, asset managers and endowments.
Research by estate agent comparison site, GetAgent.co.uk, uncovered how much money the UK government lost as a result of the stamp duty holiday and where in England it was the most costly. The research found that despite a 0.4 percent uplift in transactions, the amount of money the government collected through SDLT declined significantly as a result of the holiday, resulting in a revenue loss of £2.4 billion (28.6 percent).
Friday
Data from Action Fraud, the UK's reporting centre for fraud and cyber crime, revealed a staggering £146,222,332 has been lost to cryptocurrency fraud since the start of this year – almost a third more (30 per cent) than was lost throughout the whole of 2020.
Only a third of UK tax returns are filed by mid-October, even though individuals have already had eight and a half months to complete their self-assessment documentation. In a typical year, only a third (33 percent) of returns are filed by 20 October whilst almost half of all returns (43 percent) are filed in the month prior to the deadline of midnight on 31 January.