News Article - 29 January 2008
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A major accountancy organisation has questioned whether the government's recent amendments to the capital gains tax regime infringe upon European law.

The Institute of Chartered Accountants of Scotland (ICAS) claims that previous legal decisions have suggested that taxpayers should be provided with a "reasonable" transition period in which to get ready for any new legislation.

However, Alistair Darling's January 24th announcement only gives businesses ten weeks to prepare for the April 6th implementation date.

From then, taper relief will be abolished and a flat 18 per cent rate will be introduced.

However, Mr Darling has stated there will be an "entrepreneur's relief" of ten per cent taxation on gains up to £1 million.

According to ICAS, it is "irresponsible" not to give taxpayers enough time to react to the changes.

Derek Allen, director of taxation, said that the chancellor should delay any changes for two years.

"If this is not possible, he should still allow taxpayers who owned assets at 6th October 2007 a period of up to two years to sell those assets and gain the benefit of indexation allowance," he added.

Article keywords: Nearly half of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are unaware that using unlicensed software could pose a number of risks to their business, a study has shown.<br/><br/>In response to a survey conducted by the <a href="http://www.access-accounts.com/business-software.aspx" target="_self">Business Software </a>Alliance, 93 per cent of firms said they were confident that their software was legal, despite 27 per cent of UK companies being thought to use pirated copies.<br/><br/>Some 41 per cent of companies said they believed that using pirated software did not present any risks, while 85 per cent were unaware that using the applications could make them susceptible to viruses.<br/><br/>&quot;It's clear from the research that directors of many British businesses just don't realise the risks of using illegal software, &quot; said BSA UK member committee chairman Ram Dhaliwal.<br/><br/>&quot;SMEs need to recognise that they could be susceptible to serious operational and IT risks, aside from the legal and financial consequences.&quot;<br/><br/>He added that firms should improve their software management processes to avoid finding themselves in unfortunate situations.<br/><br/>Businesses can also be threatened by USB memory sticks and other portable devices which can store information, IT specialist Rob Lucas recently told Mondaq.com.<br/>

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