Osborne firm tax wipeout
Losses reduced corporation bill to zero
WITH TRICIA PHILLIPS GLASGOW is one of the worst places in the UK when it comes to saving money by switching energy suppliers.
St Albans was revealed to the savviest city, having collectively saved £2.1million since January.
Stockport came second, while Glasgow, Liverpool and London were near the bottom of the table compiled by comparison website uSwitch.com.
More than half of bill payers are worried about how they will afford their winter energy bill.
If they are with the Big Six – British Gas, EON, Npower, SSE, Scottish Power and EDF – it’s no wonder, as between them they have announced 10 price rises this year.
Uswitch reckon you can save up to £482 by shopping around.
Smaller firms continue to offer the best deals. People’s Energy offer the current cheapest tariff at £946. Yet, 75 per cent of us stay with the giants.
Some households are wary of switching to smaller suppliers as six have gone bust this year, including Spark Energy and Extra Energy.
But there is a safety net for customers of energy firms that fail. Energy regulator Ofgem place them with another competitive supplier, so there is no disruption to supply.
Rik Smith of uSwitch.com, said: “Energy companies respond best when they know consumers will move elsewhere if they’re not happy.” GEORGE Osborne’s family firm have paid no UK corporation tax for nine of the past 10 years.
Wallpaper business Osborne and Little, owned by the former Tory Chancellor’s dad, have paid just £12,000 in corporation tax since 2009.
During that time, the luxury finishing company have raked in more than £330million in sales.
However, they were legitimately able to use losses in several years to offset profits in others to reduce their corporation tax bill overall.
The latest accounts for Osborne and Little show they lost £350,000 in the last financial year. That SHARES in travel giants Thomas Cook slumped for the fifth day in a row £100million was yesterday. Another as stock market value wiped off their dived 21 per cent. their share price have been under The company announcing a pressure since sharp fall in annual profits. included losses from the ongoing weakness of the pound against the dollar.
Osborne and Little locked themselves into currency exchange contracts before the 2016 referendum vote but lost out after the pound dropped.
The company suffered £48,000 of “hedging losses” last year, albeit less than £855,000 hit in the previous 12 months.
Sales fell five per cent last year, the latest accounts filed at Companies House show. Takings in the US, which makes up half their trade, fell two per cent. However, sales in the UK tumbled 12 per cent to £6.2million, with the company blaming it in part on “uncertainty in the economic climate” in the run-up to Brexit next March. George Osborne, who currently has seven jobs – including editor of the London Evening Standard – has no involvement in the running of firm but is believed to have a small stake in it. George Osborne MORE than £120million was wiped off Ted Baker’s value yesterday as the fashion firm pledged to investigate claims of “forced hugging” by their founder.
Shares in the company slumped 15 per cent as they rushed to defend chief executive Ray Kelvin.
An online petition claiming to represent more than 200 employees has called on the company to end a “culture that leaves harassment unchallenged”.
But the firm said: “Ray greets many people he meets with a hug. Hugs have become part of Ted Baker’s culture but are absolutely not insisted upon.”