In October 2021, the 136 countries which make up the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) inclusive framework agreed upon a set of reforms which were designed to manage the taxation of multinational companies at the international level. These measures are broken down and referred to as pillar one and pillar two. Pillar one will control where a multinational group pays tax and involves a partial reallocation of taxing rights over the profits of large m

UK GDP fell 0.3% month on month in April which means that the economy has been without growth since January. The key factor for the Bank of England to consider is whether this slowdown in growth will prove disinflationary so they can avoid raising interest rates. At present it, though, is not apparent that inflation is coming to a halt. While the UK economy is still 0.9% above its pre-pandemic level, GDP fell by 0.3% in April which followed a fall of 0.1% in March and zero gr

Retail sales volumes in the UK rose to 1.4% month on month in April, even when excluding fuel sales. Clothing sales led to non-store retail being up by 3.7% month on month in April and fuel sales rose 1.4% month on month but this has only offset the 4.3% fall which was seen in March. Supermarket sales were up by 2.8% which made them the main driver of April’s rise. This was the largest rise in supermarket sales since the economy reopened in 2021. It was not, however, the sale

Due to the various exceptional circumstances in the world of politics and economics over the past two years, the usual indicators of the economic outlook and monetary policy in the UK are much less clear cut than they normally would be: In March 2022, GDP fell which was reported to be a consequence of the rising cost of living by the media. But it appears that the 15% month on month fall in the motor vehicle industry, (which triggered the decline), may have been a

While regular pay experienced a real-terms drop of 1.2% in March 2022 (despite technically growing by 4.2%), total pay had a growth of 1.4% (theoretically 7.0% when not adjusted to inflation) which was much higher than expected. But not all sectors have experienced equal growth in pay. The highest growth was for those in financial services, which saw an increase of 10.7% in their total pay, influenced greatly by a 31% rise in bonus payments. Pay growth was much slower elsewhe

In March of this year, unemployment in the UK fell to its lowest level since July 1974: just 3.7% and the Office for National Statistics reports that there are fewer unemployed people in the UK than there are job vacancies for the first time since records began. But as vacancies rose to an all-time high (1.295million) in April, the rate of growth slowed for the eight consecutive month to 4.1%. For perspective, growth hit a peak last Summer of over 40% and, while Payrolls empl