While I was checking out the rankings of our website in Google, I ran across a couple of pretty funny accountancy quotes, which I thought I'd share with you.

“I have no use for bodyguards, but I have very specific use for two highly trained certified public accountants.”
Elvis Presley

“An accountant is a man who watches the battle from the safety of the hills and then comes down to bayonet the wounded”
Unknown

“A statistician is someone who is good with numbers, but lacks the personality to be an accountant”
Unknown

Well, I thought they were funny. On similar lines, I'm collecting a few anecdotes from some of the accountants we work with and will put the best on this blog.

It looks like attempts to cut down the amount of binge and teenage drinking in the UK might backfire as major off license chains and supermarkets are putting pressure on brewers to absorb the recent alcohol tax rises.

Bargain Booze are quoted in the story as having sent a letter to suppliers, saying:

"...We will have to review the position of any brands where the retail ticket is increased in our business ... We regret to say that we cannot absorb the increases in costs that the Budget would seem to demand.' It asks suppliers to help 'by absorbing these increases within your own company'..."

My own view is that the price of alcohol in the UK has little or nothing to do with a 'binge-drinking' culture, if there even is such a thing.

Alcohol in the UK is far, far more expensive than in continental Europe and if the government are insistent on trying to legislate our lifestyles, they are going to have to find more effective ways to do it.

I'm feeling obliged to post something about the budget.

There are far, far more qualified people than me to comment on the implications of this particular budget, but the overall tone of response is far from positive.

The Daily Mail and Daily Telegraph describes it as the dullest in history, while The Times concurs, suggesting that it will also be unpopular.

For some more in depth analysis of the possible consequences, Bloomberg feel that the combination of no tax rises plus increased borrowing will squeeze UK businesses while The Financial Times questions whether the Chancellor's economic forecasts are accurate.

My own view is that this is an extremely cautious budget that attempts to just weather an oncoming economic storm without really providing the tools necessary to do so. Taxing drinkers and petrol is hardly the way to do it, is it?

For some reason, this article predicting an 'Enron style scandal' in the UK seems to be generating a lot of interest at the moment.

The essence of it is that, according to a survey commissioned by a document management company, "89 per cent [of senior IT professionals] claimed that someone at their company had the capability to tamper with or lose documents to suit their own ends."

This, apparently, has the potential to lead to an Enron-style accounting scandal.

Quite why the fact that employees are not always utterly honest and could commit crimes is such a story, I don't know. But I do commend document management software company Version One, who commissioned the research, for getting their press release such wide coverage. Much respect.

Since Germany bought stolen banking records and started investigating the Liechtenstein banking network for tax fraud, there have been increasing calls within the EU to end tax havens.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel told a joint press conference with French President Nicolas Sarkozy that "We will support the French presidency's aims of tackling tax havens and states operating privileged tax systems with the aim of achieving harmonized taxation" only yesterday.

However, although it may seem like the big European nations are trying to control the banking set-ups of their smaller partners, there simply isn't the legal framework to force countries like Liechtenstein, Switzerland and Monaco to hand over the names of clients to foreign governments without the individual's consent.

This alone should ensure that tax havens remain existent, not to mention that too deep a probe may reveal things other EU countries (mentioning no names) would prefer to remain hidden.