HMRC 'must fully investigate' Google
By Anonymous on Jun 12, 2013 07:04 pm 12 June 2013 Last updated at 19:04 ET 
Google says it welcomes calls to make the tax system simpler and more transparent
HM Revenue and Customs should "fully investigate" Google after information from whistleblowers "undermined" the firm's defence of its tax arrangements, a committee of MPs has said.
Google says that advertising sales take place in low-tax Ireland, not the UK.
But the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) said it had been told by ex-employees of the tech giant that UK-based staff are engaged in selling.
Google said it complies with all the tax rules in the UK.
The company generated $18bn (£11.5bn) in revenue from the UK between 2006 and 2011 and paid just $16m (£10m) in UK corporate taxes in the same period.
Companies pay corporation tax on their profits, not their sales. But the current debate revolves around the apparent ability of multinationals to move their profits from country to country with little obvious relationship to where the sales are generated.
The committee also said that confidence in HMRC had been weakened.
It said it was "extraordinary" that the tax authority did not challenge Google over "the complete mismatch between the company's supposed structure and the substance of its activities".
'Much wider problem' Google executive Matt Brittin has twice appeared before the PAC - first in November, alongside executives from Starbucks and Amazon - and then in May when he was called back after whistleblowers said Google had sold advertising within the UK and invoiced customers in the UK.
He insisted that no-one in the UK could execute transactions, despite the fact that he employed sales staff in the UK.
"Google brazenly argued before this committee that its tax arrangements in the UK are defensible and lawful," said Margaret Hodge, chair of the PAC.
"The company's highly contrived tax arrangement has no purpose other than to enable the company to avoid UK corporation tax."
Google is one of several multinational companies that have been strongly criticised in recent months for organising their tax affairs in ways that minimise the amounts they pay in the UK.
The committee said it was not singling out Google, nor Starbucks or Amazon, but said the tax avoidance of these multinationals was "illustrative of a much wider problem".
It said the only way for Google to repair its damaged reputation was for it to pay "its fair share of tax in the country where it earns the profits from the business it conducts".
A Google spokesman said: "It's clear from this report that the Public Accounts Committee wants to see international companies paying more tax where their customers are located, but that's not how the rules operate today.
"We welcome the call to make the current system simpler and more transparent."
Tackling tax avoidance MPs were also critical of HMRC for not sufficiently challenging multinationals over their tax arrangements.
HMRC head of business tax Jim Harra said: "Since 2010 we have collected over £23bn in extra tax through challenging large businesses' tax arrangements.
"Through tackling transfer pricing issues, we have collected £2bn since 2010 alone. We relentlessly pursue businesses who don't play by the rules, these results reflect this."
The committee called on the government to strengthen HMRC and to simplify the tax code so that there are fewer loopholes.
The UK is hosting next week's G8 summit in Northern Ireland, and has put tax and transparency at the heart of the agenda.
Prime Minister David Cameron wants the meeting to include country-by-country reporting of where companies pay their tax.
"This government is committed to creating the most competitive corporate tax system in the G20, but this goes hand-in-hand with our call for strong international standards to make sure that global companies, like anyone else, pay the taxes they owe," a Treasury spokesman said.
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RBS to cut jobs as new boss sought
By Anonymous on Jun 13, 2013 03:16 am 13 June 2013 Last updated at 00:42 ET 
RBS is hoping to begin its return to full private ownership next year
Royal Bank of Scotland is expected to announce 2,000 job losses later, after it emerged its boss Stephen Hester is to quit after five years in the job.
The cuts are expected to be spread worldwide as the investment division is pruned, with some jobs going in the UK.
Mr Hester has said he would have liked to stay on as boss until the bank - 81% publicly owned - was reprivatised.
Ex-City minister Lord Myners has said the decision he should quit was taken at Chancellor George Osborne's bidding.
BBC economics correspondent Hugh Pym says the search starts today for Mr Hester's successor in a position with "more than its share of public scrutiny" - given that a large stake of the bank is owned by taxpayers following a government bailout.
There was a strong hint from RBS chairman Sir Philip Hampton that the government was keen to start the sale process late next year, but the Treasury has denied there is any firm timetable, our correspondent says.
'Osborne's bidding' There has been some speculation that Mr Hester's departure may have been triggered by disagreements between him and Mr Osborne, he adds.
Speaking on the BBC's Newsnight programme, Lord Myners said Mr Hester had "made it very clear he didn't really want to go now. He's going because the board has said he should go and I think they are doing the bidding of George Osborne.
"George Osborne has been increasingly at odds with Stephen Hester over the management of this bank."
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Stephen Hester: "I'm content with the board's perspective on this, there is no fight"
Mr Hester will receive 12 months' pay and benefits worth £1.6m and the potential for £4m in shares.
In a statement, RBS said an "orderly succession" would allow the new CEO to oversee the re-privatisation of the bank and lead it "in the years that follow".
It said Mr Hester "was unable to make that open-ended commitment".
Lord McFall, a former chairman of the Treasury select committee, told Radio 4's the World Tonight that the announcement from RBS was "really strange".
"I would have thought if they want to privatise - and it's obvious the prime minister and the chancellor are pushing this like mad... then the person who's been there since the beginning, who picked it up when the company was a basket case and has taken it on, would be the person best fit to see to that."
Speaking to reporters on a conference call, chairman Sir Philip Hampton said the timetable, pushed by the Treasury, for the bank's return to the private sector had forced the transition.
'Bruising and difficult' He said a new chief executive would need to be in place by early next year if the bank was to begin its return to private ownership at the end of 2014.
"The acceleration of considering succession for a CEO role arises largely from the Treasury's determination... where it can be returned to the private sector by the end of 2014," he said.
Mr Hester led the large-scale restructuring of RBS following its near collapse in 2008 at the height of the financial crisis.
In a video statement released by RBS, he expressed mixed feelings about his departure.
"Of course I'd like to have stayed as I feel I've been in the trenches with all of my people helping RBS to recover, and privatisation would have been a fitting end to those endeavours," he said.
"But it has been a very bruising and difficult job so I certainly don't have to be prised away reluctantly."
Read in browser » Schools 'failing brightest pupils'
By Anonymous on Jun 13, 2013 02:27 am 12 June 2013 Last updated at 19:02 ET By Katherine Sellgren BBC News education reporter 
The report said teaching was "insufficiently focused" for able pupils in Key Stage 3 (ages 11-14)
Thousands of bright children are being let down by England's non-selective secondary schools, inspectors warn.
A culture of low expectations meant able pupils were failing to achieve top GCSE grades, Ofsted said in a report.
In 2012, 65% of pupils - 65,000 children - who had achieved Level 5 in maths and English tests at the end of primary school failed to attain A* or A grades in both these subjects at GCSE.
Head teachers said school league tables pushed schools into the middle ground.
The report - The Most Able Students: Are they doing as well as they should in our non-selective secondary schools? - found more than a quarter (27%) of previously high-attaining pupils had failed to achieve at least a B grade in both English and maths.
Ofsted defines high-achievers as those pupils who achieve a Level 5 in both English and maths in their national curriculum tests, commonly known as Sats.
'Excellent opportunities' The research - based on observations of 2,000 lessons, visits to 41 schools and school performance data - found in some non-selective schools, staff did not even know who their most able pupils were.
Continue reading the main story HIGH PRIMARY ACHIEVER GCSE RESULTS
- 62% of pupils (at non-selective secondary schools) who got Level 5 in their English Sats did not get an A* or A grade in this subject at GCSE in 2012
- 25% of pupils who got Level 5 in their English Sats failed to get at least a B
- 53% of students who got Level 5 in their maths Sats did not gain an A* or A grade in this subject at GCSE
- 22% of pupils who got Level 5 in maths in their Sats failed to get at least a B
In 40% of the schools visited by inspectors, the brightest students were not making the progress they were capable of and many had become "used" to performing at lower levels, with parents and teachers accepting this "too readily", Ofsted said.
Tracking the progress of the most academically gifted was "not used sufficiently well in many schools", the report added.
Ofsted was critical of mixed-ability classes, saying they often saw "a lack of differentiation, teaching to the middle, and the top pupils not being stretched".
The report said teaching was "insufficiently focused" for able pupils in Key Stage 3 (aged 11-14) and schools should ensure class work was challenging at this stage so that able pupils could make rapid progress.
Ofsted chief inspector Sir Michael Wilshaw said Year 7 (the first year of secondary school) was a particularly critical time for the most academically able - arriving "bright-eyed and bushy-tailed" from primary school - because a cycle of underperformance could quickly set in.
He recommended school leaders consider streaming or setting pupils from the very start of their secondary education.
Sir Michael said parents should be sent annual reports giving information on whether their child was achieving as well as they should be.
Sir Michael said too many schools failed to imbue their most able students with confidence
Sir Michael said: "Too many non-selective schools are failing to nurture scholastic excellence.
"While the best of these schools provide excellent opportunities, many of our most able students receive mediocre provision.
"Put simply, they are not doing well enough because their secondary schools fail to challenge and support them sufficiently from the beginning.
"I believe the term 'special needs' should be as relevant to the most able as it is to those who require support for their learning difficulties.
"Yet some of the schools visited for this survey did not even know who their most able students were - this is completely unacceptable.
"It is a serious concern that many non-selective schools fail to imbue their most able students with the confidence and high ambition that characterise many students in the selective or independent sector."
School league tables Head teachers said the current government benchmark measure for schools in England - the percentage of pupils getting five GCSEs at grade C or above, including maths and English - was partly to blame.
Russell Hobby, general secretary of the National Association of Head Teachers, said: "The government's league table culture deserves a measure of the blame for this situation.
"For too long, schools have been forced into the middle ground, to get students over thresholds at the expense of both the most and least able.
"Education has become a numbers game, at the expense of the ethos and breadth that underpin a truly great education."
Brian Lightman, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, said: "Schools are better than ever at using data to target specific groups of pupils and fully understand the need to identify the most able and ensure that they are appropriately challenged.
"However, the current accountability measure [of 5 A*-C GCSEs] is not helpful, and we are pleased that the government is looking at changing this."
A spokesman for the Department for Education said: "Secondary schools must ensure all their pupils - including their brightest - fulfil their potential.
"That's why we are introducing a more demanding and rigorous curriculum, toughening up GCSEs and getting universities involved in A-levels."
Read in browser » Peking to Paris rally Briton killed
By Anonymous on Jun 13, 2013 03:26 am 13 June 2013 Last updated at 02:56 ET 
A British woman has been killed in a car crash in western Siberia, while taking part in a vintage car rally from Peking to Paris.
Mother-of-two Emma Wilkinson, 46, was killed when her 1970 Chevrolet C10 collided head on with a Volkswagen Polo near the city of Tyumen on Wednesday.
A man and a child in the other vehicle were also killed.
Russian police said they were investigating the circumstances of the incident.
The rally is said to be one of the toughest vintage car races in the world, covering 7,000 miles (11,000km).
In a statement, the rally organisers said Mrs Wilkinson had been a "fun loving, lively and popular member of the rally" and that their thoughts and sympathies were with her family and friends.
Read in browser » Kidnapped Aceh Briton found safe
By Anonymous on Jun 13, 2013 02:32 am 13 June 2013 Last updated at 00:24 ET 
Mr Primrose was said to be in good health when he was found
Briton Malcolm Primrose, who was kidnapped in Indonesia on Tuesday, has been found safe, the Foreign Office says.
UK embassy officials are with the 61-year-old oil engineer, who was seized while returning from a mine in the north Sumatran province of Aceh.
Indonesian officials say an extensive hunt for his captors is continuing.
A police spokesman said Mr Primrose was found early on Thursday and he is in good health.
Earlier, police had said the Briton had made contact via telephone and his kidnappers had asked for a ransom.
Aceh has a history of separatist conflicts and violence
But the spokesman said no money exchanged hands, and police and the military were still looking for the men who had kidnapped him.
Officials there believe the motive for the kidnapping was a grudge against the Indonesian company Mr Primrose worked for, Medco Exploration and Production.
He and his driver were returning to their base camp on Tuesday when their car was ambushed by four armed men. The driver was tied up while Mr Primrose was driven away by the abductors.
Aceh is a resource rich and strongly Muslim province that has had a history of separatist conflicts and spates of violence - sometimes targeting foreigners.
In 2009 there were shootings involving some foreigners but police say there have been no known kidnappings of Westerners in the province in recent years.
Read in browser » Facebook adds support for hashtags
By Anonymous on Jun 12, 2013 05:47 pm 12 June 2013 Last updated at 17:47 ET 
Clicking on a hashtagged word brings up a box with other posts using the same term
Facebook is adding support for hashtags to help its members keep track of popular topics being discussed on the social network,
Adding the "#" sign to a word will turn it into a clickable link which brings up a feed of what other people are saying about the same topic.
Using hashtags to identify a theme was popularised on the internet by Twitter.
Facebook said it offers a "larger view of what's happening". Experts said it might also aid ad sales.
Other services that support hashtags include Pinterest, Tumblr, Google+, Sina Weibo, LinkedIn and Instagram, which is owned by Facebook.
Real-time marketing The news was announced on the California-based firm's news page.
It said clicking a hashtag would bring up a chronologically ordered list of comments using the same term, including posts from people and pages they were not friends with and had not liked.
"Hashtags are just the first step to help people more easily discover what others are saying about a specific topic and participate in public conversations," it added.
"We'll continue to roll out more features in the coming weeks and months, including trending hashtags and deeper insights, that help people discover more of the world's conversations."
Users can still limit who can view their hashtagged posts.
"I think they saw the success Twitter had with the concept and they saw no reason why they shouldn't co-opt some of that thinking themselves," said Andrew Frank, a social media analyst at the consultants Gartner.
"Hashtags are also popular with advertisers. They are a way to extend the value and reach of advertising."
Facebook does not currently allow advertisers to target people posting a specific hashtag or to sponsor a hashtag - as is the case with Twitter.
But one industry watcher suggested that might change if it wanted to target growing "real-time marketing" budgets - money spent on adverts whose timing is determined by live trackable consumer behaviour.
"People are having conversations about things like the Superbowl and Oscars on Facebook, but most of those messages haven't been public, so marketers haven't been able to get at that signal and know about the conversation an audience is having while they're doing it," said Cotton Delo, digital and technology writer at Advertising Age magazine.
"At the moment Facebook is not monetising that, but it would be surprising if it doesn't at some point."
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