Tax Cheats: HMRC Publishes Names and Photos

The names and photographs of last year's top tax cheats have been made public as part of the Government's efforts to crack down on evasion.

The 32 criminals have been sentenced to a combined 155 years and 10 months behind bars, HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) said.

The move to publish their details is designed to shame tax cheats.

The Government invested £917m in tackling tax evasion, avoidance and fraud in 2011-12, with an additional £77m planned over the next two years.

"Most people play by the rules and pay what they owe, but HMRC is cracking down on those who don't," said Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury David Gauke.

"We hope that publishing these pictures will help get across that it always makes sense to declare all your income, and tax dodgers are simply storing up trouble for the future."

The Government hopes its crackdown will raise an additional £7bn each year by 2014-15.

Among those whose details were published was a criminal gang that has been jailed for one of the biggest alcohol-smuggling frauds ever uncovered in the UK.

The scam was worth £50m a year in unpaid duty and VAT, and allowed the gang members to spend vast amounts of money on luxury cars and properties throughout Europe.

The Prime Minister has made tackling tax avoidance a key issue of the UK's presidency of the G8 group, amid mounting concerns over the tax policies of big international firms in the country.

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More Pensioners Working Into Retirement

By Becky Johnson, Sky News Correspondent

As nearly 10 million people in Britain are now over 65, increasing numbers of pensioners are taking up a second career after they retire.

One in three 45 to 65-year-olds now plan to carry on working into retirement, according to a report by investment group Standard Life.

Sam Almond is 86 and lives in Altrincham, Cheshire, with his wife Hazel. After he retired from his job as the owner of a manufacturing company he began writing books about the financial markets.

His success as an author spurred him on to write a self-help book, Spinach For Breakfast, about the secrets to living longer.

He believes the key to staying young is keeping busy. Every day he gets up at 4.30am to allow time to do some exercise, eat a healthy breakfast and be at his desk for 8am.

The latest census shows the number of people over the age of 65 in England and Wales has increased by 10% over the last decade.

According to the Department for Work and Pensions life expectancy for men is expected to reach 91 by the year 2050.

One reason more people over retirement age are continuing to work is to top up their income.

The National Association for Pension Funds says nine in 10 people believe the state pension will not be enough for them in retirement.

Universities Minister David Willetts told Sky News: "One thing that we've done is transform the regime for older workers by abolishing compulsory retirement ages so that companies can keep staff for longer.

"But there may some people, who've paid off the mortgage and the kids have left home, who want to make a career change.

"We notice increasingly mature students who may have had one career but who are now thinking of getting a new qualification and starting a second career.

"I believe the more people that are out there seeking work, the more jobs get created. And if you look at the record of the last two years, despite the austerity, there have been more than one million extra jobs created in the private sector so we can create the jobs as people come forward who want to do them."

Julie Kertesz, 77, took up stand-up comedy a year ago. She says it's something she fell into by accident after realising she could make people laugh.

Originally from Hungary she has lived and worked around the world, mainly as a chemist.

She retired aged 60 but says she continued to pursue her interests in writing and photography.

She then tried public speaking and has now performed her stand-up routine in more than 50 venues across the UK.

She told Sky News: "The young people who listen to me are surprised and they like it, they say I'd like my grandmother to be like that or my grandfather.

"Don't die before you die - do things and live completely, change things because that is when you live... Even at 70 or 80 you can do wonderful things."

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Exclusive: Banks Braced For Cash Bonus Cap

By Mark Kleinman, City Editor

The two giant banks bailed out by British taxpayers in 2008 are preparing to impose a fourth consecutive annual cap on cash bonuses as they finalise staff payouts for last year.

I have learned that executives at Lloyds Banking Group and Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) are braced for the Government to push for a £2,000 ceiling on cash payments as ministers and investors seek to drive down pay in the financial services sector.

The boardroom remuneration committees at Lloyds and RBS have begun consulting with leading investors about the size and shape of their bonus pools for 2012, with approximately eight weeks remaining until the two state-backed banks report their full-year results at the beginning of March.

No formal talks have yet taken place between the banks and UK Financial Investments (UKFI), the body which manages the taxpayer's 82 per cent stake in RBS and 41 per cent of Lloyds, about using the £2000 limit again this year.

However, several bank executives spoken to by Sky News in recent days said a repeat of the £2,000 cap was inevitable.

Any nod toward restraint would gain public support from Cabinet ministers such as George Osborne, the Chancellor, and Vince Cable, the Business Secretary.

"It would be politically impossible for the Government to sanction a removal of the cap, or even raising it modestly, given the wider economic environment," one of the bank executives said.

The £2,000 limit on cash payouts was introduced in 2010 amid pressure from Gordon Brown's Labour government a few months before the general election.

It was repeated in the following two years, and in 2012, David Cameron, the Prime Minister, said the cap was essential as part of a broader Coalition crackdown on executive pay.

The imposition for a fourth year of the cash cap is unlikely to muster significant opposition from Lloyds and RBS executives, who in previous years have complained privately that it leaves them more exposed to having employees by other banks not subject to the cap.

That is because intensifying pressure from City shareholders and new remuneration rules set out by the Financial Services Authority (FSA) have triggered a reduction in cash bonuses across the banking industry.

Both Barclays and HSBC both imposed cash ceilings on investment banking staff last year - although these were much higher than the £2000 limit at Lloyds and RBS.

The FSA has been particularly robust about banks' plans to pay bonuses for 2012, arguing that the spate of scandals which has hit the industry - ranging from payment protection insurance mis-selling to Libor rate manipulation - must be reflected in the size of payouts.

Only the cash components of bonuses for Lloyds and RBS staff would be restricted to £2,000, with dozens of staff likely to receive share-based bonuses running into tens or hundreds of thousands of pounds.

These employees will principally be employees of RBS's global banking and markets arm, although there will be fewer of them this year than in any previous bonus round since the bail-out of the banks because of the subdued performance of the division.

RBS has already side-stepped the annual row over the bonus of Stephen Hester, its chief executive. He waived his entitlement to be considered for a bonus following the IT systems glitch last summer which left millions of RBS customers without access to their accounts.

Lloyds, RBS and UKFI all declined to comment.

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Tax Cheats: HMRC Publishes Names and Photos

The names and photographs of last year's top tax cheats have been made public as part of the Government's efforts to crack down on evasion.

The 32 criminals have been sentenced to a combined 155 years and 10 months behind bars, HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) said.

The move to publish their details is designed to shame tax cheats.

The Government invested £917m in tackling tax evasion, avoidance and fraud in 2011-12, with an additional £77m planned over the next two years.

"Most people play by the rules and pay what they owe, but HMRC is cracking down on those who don't," said Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury David Gauke.

"We hope that publishing these pictures will help get across that it always makes sense to declare all your income, and tax dodgers are simply storing up trouble for the future."

The Government hopes its crackdown will raise an additional £7bn each year by 2014-15.

Among those whose details were published was a criminal gang that has been jailed for one of the biggest alcohol-smuggling frauds ever uncovered in the UK.

The scam was worth £50m a year in unpaid duty and VAT, and allowed the gang members to spend vast amounts of money on luxury cars and properties throughout Europe.

The Prime Minister has made tackling tax avoidance a key issue of the UK's presidency of the G8 group, amid mounting concerns over the tax policies of big international firms in the country.

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FSA To Sweep Away New Bank Barriers

By Mark Kleinman, City Editor

The City regulator will set out proposals later this month to slash capital requirements for new banks as ministers try to ferment fresh competition to the industry's dominant players.

I have learned that the Financial Services Authority (FSA) has convened a summit on January 16 at which it will lay out plans to sweep away many of the restrictions that critics have argued have restricted the ability of new banks to get off the ground.

Among those attending the meeting will be representatives of the Treasury, the British Bankers' Association and the Association of Foreign Banks. The regulator's plans will be set out by Martin Wheatley and Andrew Bailey, the managing directors of the FSA.

According to insiders, the main proposal will be to relax the requirement for new lenders to hold comparable capital buffers to established banks during the early stages of their existence. Under current rules, new banks must significantly increase the capital they hold during their third year of operation, a measure that the FSA will propose is abolished.

Virgin Money entered the banking market as an alternative to the 'Big Four'

The existing capital regime has been criticised as excessively onerous by some executives who have attempted to launch banks in the aftermath of the financial crisis.

Only one new high street lender - Metro Bank - has opened its doors in recent times, and ministers are keen to encourage further efforts to assail the dominance of the likes of Barclays, Lloyds Banking Group and Royal Bank of Scotland.

A number of other projects, including a telephone and internet-based lender called Home & Savings Bank, have failed to see the light of day because of capital-raising difficulties.

Modernisation in 1959 included drive-in banks, like this one in Leicester

Last autumn, Mr Wheatley told the Parliamentary Commission on Banking Standards that the reformed regime for authorising new banks would achieve the Government's competition objectives.

"We are looking at a staged process where we can give new entrants enough certainty to recruit a chief executive and get capital but still reserve our position that they cannot be fully operational until the right things are in place."

The effort to remove capital obstacles to the formation of new banks comes as regulators intensify pressure on Britain's major lenders to increase the financial buffers in place to protect them in the event of a future financial crash.

The Bank of England, which will assume responsibility for regulating the banking industry this year, has warned lenders that they will need to restrict dividend and bonus payments in order to conserve capital.

The FSA, which is expected to publish its plans early next month, declined to comment on the forthcoming meeting.

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More Pensioners Working Into Retirement

By Becky Johnson, Sky News Correspondent

As nearly 10 million people in Britain are now over 65, increasing numbers of pensioners are taking up a second career after they retire.

One in three 45 to 65-year-olds now plan to carry on working into retirement, according to a report by investment group Standard Life.

Sam Almond is 86 and lives in Altrincham, Cheshire, with his wife Hazel. After he retired from his job as the owner of a manufacturing company he began writing books about the financial markets.

His success as an author spurred him on to write a self-help book, Spinach For Breakfast, about the secrets to living longer.

He believes the key to staying young is keeping busy. Every day he gets up at 4.30am to allow time to do some exercise, eat a healthy breakfast and be at his desk for 8am.

The latest census shows the number of people over the age of 65 in England and Wales has increased by 10% over the last decade.

According to the Department for Work and Pensions life expectancy for men is expected to reach 91 by the year 2050, compared with 87 today.

One reason more people over retirement age are continuing to work is to top up their income.

The National Association for Pension Funds says nine in 10 people believe the state pension will not be enough for them in retirement.

Universities Minister David Willetts told Sky News: "One thing that we've done is transform the regime for older workers by abolishing compulsory retirement ages so that companies can keep staff for longer.

"But there may some people, who've paid off the mortgage and the kids have left home, who want to make a career change.

"We notice increasingly mature students who may have had one career but who are now thinking of getting a new qualification and starting a second career.

"I believe the more people that are out there seeking work, the more jobs get created. And if you look at the record of the last two years, despite the austerity, there have been more than one million extra jobs created in the private sector so we can create the jobs as people come forward who want to do them."

Julie Kertesz, 77, took up stand-up comedy a year ago. She says it's something she fell into by accident after realising she could make people laugh.

Originally from Hungary she has lived and worked around the world, mainly as a chemist.

She retired aged 60 but says she continued to pursue her interests in writing and photography.

She then tried public speaking and has now performed her stand-up routine in more than 50 venues across the UK.

She told Sky News: "The young people who listen to me are surprised and they like it, they say I'd like my grandmother to be like that or my grandfather.

"Don't die before you die - do things and live completely, change things because that is when you live... Even at 70 or 80 you can do wonderful things."

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Swiss Bank Wegelin To Close After Tax Probe

The oldest Swiss private bank is to close after pleading guilty to helping wealthy Americans evade their taxes through secret accounts.

Wegelin & Co, founded in 1741, admitted charges of conspiracy in helping US taxpayers hide at least $1.2bn (£747m) for nearly a decade.

The plea, in a New York court, sounded the death knell for one of Switzerland's most storied banks, whose original European clients pre-date the American Revolution.

The bank agreed to pay $57.8m (£35.9m) to the United States in compensation and fines.

Otto Bruderer, a managing partner at the 271-year-old bank, told the court: "Wegelin was aware that this conduct was wrong."

He said that "from about 2002 through about 2010, Wegelin agreed with certain US taxpayers to evade the US tax obligations of these US taxpayer clients, who filed false tax returns with the Internal Revenue Service".

The case against Wegelin is one of the most aggressive bank crackdowns on overseas tax evasion in US history.

It remains unclear whether the bank is required to reveal the details of its American clients.

The fate of three of its bankers - Michael Berlinka, Urs Frei and Roger Keller - indicted in January 2012 on charges later modified to include the bank, also remains up in the air.

The bank initially vowed to resist the charges last February and was declared a fugitive from justice when its Swiss-based executives failed to appear in court.

It claimed because it only had branches in Switzerland it could not be prosecuted by the US, adding that its actions were not in violation of Swiss law.

But in a statement on Thursday from its headquarters in the remote town of St Gallen near the German-Austrian border, it announced it would "cease to operate as a bank" once the matter was concluded.

Since its indictment it has moved quickly to wind down its business, partly through a sale of its non-US assets to regional Swiss bank Raiffesen Gruppe.

In a statement after the plea, assistant US Attorney General Kathryn Keneally said it was a top Justice Department priority "to find those who continue to shirk their tax obligations," as well as those who help them and profit from it.

In 2009, UBS the largest Swiss bank, entered into a deferred-prosecution agreement with US tax authorities on matters related to tax evasion and agreed to turn over the names of 4,450 clients and pay a $780m (£485m) fine.

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New Survey Fears Of 'Triple Dip' Recession

There are fresh fears that the UK economy is sliding towards a triple dip recession this year after output slipped in the final quarter of 2012.

Output contracted by 0.2%, according to an eagerly awaited indicator for the economy.

Markit's Purchasing Manufacturers' Index (PMI) survey for December found that activity in the powerhouse service sector shrank for the first time in two years.

The index suggested that the economy as a whole has slipped back into contraction during the last three months.

Markit said the figures, combined with mixed manufacturing and construction figures earlier this week, suggest Britain's economy suffered a bigger drop than most other private sector forecasts.

"The first fall in service sector activity for two years raises the likelihood that the UK economy is sliding back into recession," Markit chief economist Chris Williamson said.

The figures dampen hopes of recent upbeat surveys and official services data for October that Britain would be able to power out of a fourth-quarter contraction.

A fresh fall in GDP, just three months after Britain officially emerged from its second recession since the global financial crisis, would undermine Government economic policy.

"The data today on the services PMI are quite discouraging," Societe Generale economist Brian Hilliard said.

"This is quite worrying. It does suggest that as we come to the turn of the year the economy's been losing momentum, so it doesn't augur well for growth.

"I think (the data) will make it clear to the Bank of England that they should consider more easing, but the point is in the short term at least it's coming in the form of the Funding for Lending scheme and the data on that are quite encouraging."

Markit said the PMI dropped to 48.9 in December - its lowest level since April - from 50.2 in November.

It is the first time the index has fallen below the 50 mark that separates growth from contraction since December 2010, when unusually heavy snow disrupted many businesses.

Separate BoE figures released on Friday morning showed the biggest monthly rise in mortgage approvals since January 2012.

The bank said mortgage approvals reached 54,036 in November, up from 53,071 in October.

Before the financial crisis in 2008 monthly mortgage approvals ran at around 90,000 and were a major driver of consumer spending.

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Samsung To Increase Smartphone Market Share

Industry forecasters predict more than 875 million smartphones will be sold in 2013 - a rate of more than two million a day.

And the bitter rivalry between technological giants Samsung and Apple is set to intensify in the battle to be the global market leader in telecommunications.

Samsung smartphone sales are tipped to grow 35%, further increasing its lead over Apple.

The South Korean company is forecast to sell 290 million smartphones this year, up from an estimated 215 million in 2012, according to market researcher Strategy Analytics.

Apple's smartphone sales are forecast to reach 180 million this year, up 33% from last year, trailing Samsung's growth.

This will give Samsung a 33% share of the 2013 smartphone market, up from last year's estimated 31%, while Apple's share will rise by 1% to 21%.

According to Strategy Analytics, Apple may respond by launching a smaller and cheaper smartphone - the iPhone Mini.

However, it is not expected to be available before 2014.

"We expect Samsung to slightly extend its lead over Apple this year because of its larger multi-tier product portfolio," Strategy Analytics executive director Neil Mawston said.

Reports suggest Samsung may launch the Galaxy S IV - a new version of its flagship smartphone - in April, and the Galaxy Note III phablet, plus a series of other new smartphones over the course of the year.

"Samsung plays in more segments and this should enable it to capture more volume than Apple (assuming Apple does not launch an 'iPhone Mini' this year)," Mr Mawston added.

The rivals - which dominate the global mobile device market - have been locked in legal disputes around the world over design and technology.

Last month, Apple lost its bid to ban the sale of several Samsung smartphone models in the US.

Shortly afterwards, Samsung announced it was dropping legal action seeking to ban the sale of apple products in Europe.

In August 2012, Apple was awarded $1.05bn (£655m) in damages after jurors found Samsung had illegally copied critical features of the iPhone and iPad.

A further copyright court case involving the companies over newer products is set to come to trial in the US in 2014.

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Start-Up Loans Scheme Gets £30m Boost

Thousands more young entrepreneurs could get loans to start their own businesses as the Government announces it is boosting its scheme.

Prime Minister David Cameron said funding for the coalition's Start-Up Loans scheme was being boosted by £30m to £110m over three years.

The age limit for applying was also being raised from 24 to 30 in response to what Downing Street aides said was "high demand".

Number 10 insisted the initiative was on target to issue more than 2,500 loans by March - despite criticism that only a small portion of loans had been finalised since the scheme was formally launched last autumn.

Some 3,000 people are said to have registered an interest in the money and mentoring packages, which are only available in England and being delivered through charities such as The Prince's Trust.

Those whose business plans are deemed "robust" typically receive £2,500, which can be repaid over five years at a relatively low interest rate.

"Start-Up loans are an important part of my mission to back aspiration, and all those young people who want to work hard and get on in life, so this country competes and thrives in the global race," Mr Cameron said.

He said the scheme was a "great way to help this next generation of entrepreneurs get the financial help - and the confidence - to turn that spark of an idea into a growing, thriving business."

James Caan, panellist of the Dragons' Den BBC show and chairman of the company, said: "There has been a major shift in the way business is viewed by the public, and entrepreneurs are now seen as creative and exciting role models".

He added: "I am delighted to see that more and more young people are now looking to set up their own business."

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