The columnists

PREM SIKKA

Staff of bankrupt firms deserve better protection

Arcadia, the company behind brands such as Top Shop, Miss Selfridge, Burton and Dorothy Perkins, has entered administration. Some 13,000 jobs are at stake. The company is unlikely to be rescued.

Employees will lose their jobs and some pension rights. Arcadia’s employee pension schemes have a deficit of around £350m. Pension schemes are classified as unsecured creditors and will recover little from the sale of the company’s assets. The Pension Protection Fund can bailout insolvent pension schemes, but the rescue is limited to a maximum of 90% and the rules have restrictions. The upshot is that employees may lose 20-25% of their pension rights, and many will face insecurity in old age.

The same has happened at BHS, Toys R Us and elsewhere. An urgent change to insolvency law is needed. All debts to employees should be treated as priority creditors, that is paid before any other creditor.

Currently, banks and other lenders secure charges on company assets and as secured creditors walk away with most of the proceeds from the sale of assets of the insolvent entity. Banks hold diversified portfolios and have a greater capacity to absorb losses. In contrast, employees cannot diversify the investment of human capital and don’t have the same capacity to absorb losses. Human capital can’t be stored for later use. So from a risk-management perspective, their interests need to be prioritised.

Prem Sikka is Emeritus Professor of Accounting at the University of Essex

Taxwatch

Pap A capital idea?

Changes to the tax rates on capital gains could raise billions of pounds for the Exchequer, says a new report from the Office of Tax Simplification (OTS). The government’s independent tax adviser has estimated an income rise of £14 billion could be achieved by cutting exemptions and doubling rates. Big losers in this would be second home owners and those whose assets are not shielded from tax. The chancellor, Rishi Sunak, will have

Climate change tops agenda

Accountancy bodies need to do more to ensure those entering the profession understand how climate change will affect companies and societies across the globe, says the CEO of the Financial Reporting Council, Sir Jon Thompson.

A new review from the FRC says it now plans to monitor the curriculum-setting functions of the bodies to ensure syllabuses reflect the growing importance of climaterelated issues.

Currently, climate change is not a sperate subject in the Statutory Auditors (examinations) Instrument 2008, for which theoretical knowledge is required. However,

Peter Sawkins, the 20-year-old accountancy degree student, has become the youngest winner of the Great British Bake Off. He won the final with his “bonkers bubble cake”, and perhaps for his consistency over the weeks before. The University of Edinburgh undergraduate has been a Bake Off ‘nerd’ since he was 12 (his words). On winning he said: “I am that excited giddy kid right now”. His win is big news – it even made the front pages of many of the daily newspapers.

CGT “can distort behaviour” as five of the UK accountancy bodies have told the FRC that climate change is in their syllabus, either explicitly or within associated sustainability subjects. Five also explained that future syllabus developments would be incorporating and embedding climate change into appropriate subject areas.

As a direct result of the FRC review one of the bodies recognised that more bespoke content is required for inclusion in the syllabus and has set out an immediate plan of action. It anticipated that new learning materials and relevant recommended reading about climate change would be added. Unfortunately, we are not told which body that is!

The review found that the quality of support, training and resources provided to the audit practice varied considerably across firms. Moving forward the FRC said it will “assess how the accountancy bodies are incorporating climate change in education, examinations and practical experience requirements for the audit

qualification”.

FME Learn Online continues to expand

FME Learn Online has announced the arrival of another new tutor to the platform – Erin Morton (pictured). She will be offering online courses for ACCA AA.

Speaking on behalf of FME Online, Sunil Bhandari, said: “Erin is an experienced tutor who specialises in ACCA AA. I am really happy that she has joined the team at FME Learn Online.”

The addition of Erin comes hot on the heels of Sean Purcell, the ACCA SBL guru, launching his online courses on the platform last month.

Sunil told PQ magazine: “As I promised when Sean joined, further announcements would follow as we continue to expand the tutors who provide their courses on the FME Learn Online platform. We want to add even more high-quality expert tutors to our team, so watch this

to take the report seriously as the OTS said the current system of space!”

people try to reduce their tax bills, and was just “too complex”. OTS ventured that the current rate of 10% for basic rate taxpayers and 20% for higher rate taxpayers, or 18% and 28% for residential property that is not a main house, could be doubled to bring it in line with income tax rates of 20%, 40% and 45%. Currently, the first £12,300 of CGT is exempt, and it is estimated some 50,000 taxpayers narrowly avoided paying it in 2017/18.

Pap Shell pays zero corporation tax in the UK

Royal Dutch Shell, or just Shell to you and me, paid no corporation tax in the UK last year, according to its annual accounts. The oil giant did pay tax, amounting to $7.8bn in corporate income tax and another $5.9bn in royalties, but not in the UK. In fact, along with France, South Africa and Indonesia, the UK actually returned money to the company. The UK government has been giving out credits to oil companies (mostly for decommissioning oil platforms) and at the same time has been charging them lower rates of tax since 2016. The reason why we know all this is the fact that Shell publishes its global breakdown of payments. It employs 6,400 people in the UK, generating revenues of $92bn. In the 99 countries where it does pay corporation tax it stressed it has an effective tax rate of 35.5%.

Wellbeing is tumbling

The wellbeing of accountants in lockdown has fallen dramatically, according to a new poll from Hays Accountancy and Finance.

Just two in five (42%) accountants were able to rate their wellbeing positively in October. That, say researchers, is a big drop from the 66% who said they felt positive before the first national lockdown in March.

It would seem that Generation Y accountants are managing better than those from Generation X.

Hays also found that employers are trying to do more, with many creating new policies to address work-life balance. However, it believes even more needs to be done. • Read the full story on page 34.

Latest AAT pass rates out

At 54.9%, the Advanced Diploma Synoptic Assessment has the dubious honour of being the AAT assessment with the worst pass rate, according to the latest figures.

The other papers where students struggle in are Management Accounting: Decision and Control on 56.9%; Credit Management on 58.7%; and, Financial Statements of Limited Companies, with a pass rate of 59.2%.

Getting a diploma also got harder for those at the Foundation Certificate level. Some 46% of candidates received a distinction compared with 50% in the previous table of results. There was, however, a tiny jump in the number of distinctions handed out to Professional Diploma in

Accounting PQs – to 3%! The overall CBA pass rates are holding up well.

The Professional CBA pass rate is now 64.3%, and the

Advanced level is 73.5%. At the Foundation CBAs the pass rate was 82.5%.

Check out all the AAT results on page 24.

IASB proposes amendment to leases standard

The International Accounting for how to account for sale and transaction and subsequently. By Standards Board (IASB) is proposing leaseback transactions at the time doing so the amendment would to amend IFRS 16 Leases, by the transaction takes place; however, help ensure the standard is applied specifying how a company measures it does not specify how to measure consistently to such transactions. the lease liability in a sale and the lease liability when reporting after The proposed amendment would leaseback transaction. that date. not change the accounting for leases

Sale and leaseback transactions The proposed amendment would, other than those arising in a sale and are transactions for which a says the IASB, improve the sale and leaseback transaction. company sells an asset and leases leaseback requirements already in Access the Exposure Draft at that same asset back from the new IFRS 16 by providing greater clarity https://tinyurl.com/y4jbhs72. owner. for the company selling and leasing The deadline for comments on the

IFRS 16 includes requirements back an asset both at the date of Exposure Draft is 29 March 2021.

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