While I personally have nothing at all against the Customs and Revenue, I do believe that the IR35 legislation is a mess and that the new legislation governing managed service companies is even worse.

That's why there's a certain amount of schadenfreude in seeing the Professional Contractors Group's continued success in IR35 related court cases.

While this piece on Contractor Calculators.co.uk is slightly too gloating in tone, it does make clear some of the flaws of the legislation governing contractors' tax affairs.

The HMRC seems determined to label all contractors as employees and tax them accordingly. The reality is, of course, very different but - either to maximise tax revenues or because of anachronistic attitudes by legislators - the attempt to equate contractors with employees continues.

In the articles, Barry Roback, CEO of the Watford-based accounting firm JSA comments that: "These workers bear the risks of working for different companies at different times, with none of the privileges of employees. So they should not be treated like them.".

This is a view I agree with most strongly and it is for this reason that the PGC's continued success brings a smile to my face.

OK, we'll kick this blog off with an odd one.

According to the Chinese Ministry of Finance, Chinese accounting standards will be brought into line with those of the EU from January 1st 2008.

Obviously, as China opens up as a market to the rest of the world, this is no bad thing, but the question I have to ask is: how is anyone going to audit this? Are teams of SAS trained chartered accountants going to travel to Beijing to check up on whether the Chinese are secretly not doing it right?

It's a good notion, but I'm going to be interested to see how this idea works (or doesn't, as I suspect) in practice.