The UK pub industry is facing a crisis, with eight pubs closing each week due to rising tax and labour costs. In the first half of the year, 209 pubs were either demolished or repurposed, reducing the total number to 38,780. Emma McClarkin, chief executive of the British Beer and Pub Association, stated: “It’s absolutely…

PwC UK has intensified its monitoring of employee office attendance through key card usage and WiFi connections. The firm introduced a “traffic-light” system to flag attendance levels, marking those below 60% as “amber” and below 40% as “red.” The policy, effective since April, aims to ensure staff spend at least three days a week in…

Unemployment in the UK remains steady at 4.7%, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS). However, pay growth has slowed from 5% to 4.6%, and vacancy rates have dropped by 44,000, marking the 37th consecutive decline. Suren Thiru, economics director at the ICAEW, noted that rising employer national insurance costs are impacting hiring. He…

HMRC has confirmed it uses AI to monitor taxpayers’ social media activity and spending patterns, saying that the aim is to identify potential tax evasion and ensure compliance. HMRC said staff will use AI to identify suspected tax evaders and send out “automated nudges” asking them to pay what they owe. Critics say this raises…

Wealthy parents in the UK are increasingly donating to charity to mitigate inheritance tax (IHT) liabilities. A study by Rathbones shows that 53% of high-net-worth parents, with average assets over £3m, have raised their charitable contributions in the past two years. Gifts to charity are exempt from IHT, and donating at least 10% of an…

Economists polled by Bloomberg expect the UK economy to have returned to growth in June after two consecutive months of declines, predicting that Office for National Statistics (ONS) data due this week will reveal growth of 0.2%. This comes after the economy contracted by 0.3% in April and 0.1% in May. The experts also expect…