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The 2011 Cyprus Special Exports Award for Services awarded to Baker Tilly Klitou

January 2, 2013 Leave a comment

Guest Editorial by Marios Klitou 17ccf77

We are very pleased to announce that Baker Tilly Klitou (auditors, accountants, tax and management consultants) have been awarded the Cyprus Special Exports Award for services for the year 2011. This is a great honour for our firm. This award is a recognition towards the quality of our services and the dynamism and persistence of our people, in achieving great results in our efforts to promote our services and our country as a business and financial centre. The annual Cyprus Services Exports Award falls under the auspices of the Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Tourism and the Cyprus Chamber of Commerce and Industry. This annual award constitutes an outstanding support towards the Cypriot economy but especially to the businesses in the service industry, which are the backbone of the economic activities of our country, accounting to more than 70 per cent of our GDP. The 2011 Cyprus Special Exports Award for Services opens new horizons for us and demands the setting of higher goals for the future. And we can only achieve this by working closely as one team – one cohesive force with our people and our clients. Committed in providing quality business solutions. Contributing towards the advancement of our country’s economy in these challenging times.

We at Quoracy.com would like to congratulate Marios and his firm on this prestigious award.

2012 in review

December 31, 2012 Leave a comment

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2012 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

600 people reached the top of Mt. Everest in 2012. This blog got about 7,400 views in 2012. If every person who reached the top of Mt. Everest viewed this blog, it would have taken 12 years to get that many views.

Click here to see the complete report.

I come to bury mind-mapping, not to praise it.

December 28, 2012 Leave a comment

Mind Mapping

Mind Mapping (Photo credit: sirwiseowl)

Tim Brown recently wrote the following small article on Linked In updates, which I found by clicking a link telling me to stop using words to describe things:

Make it Visual

Some things are hard to describe in words. In fact, many things are hard to describe in words. Try describing in detail the bedroom you spent your childhood in. My guess is that you will have a hard time describing it well enough for someone else to recreate it. The same is true for new ideas. Words may be a start, but they often lack the precision and clarity required to describe a new idea to someone else. Photos, sketches, and data visualizations can make complex ideas easier to understand and share. That’s why portfolios beat résumés, and young designers are still encouraged to carry a sketchbook.

This week, try recording your observations and ideas visually, even if just as a rough sketch in a notebook or a picture on your camera phone. If you think you can’t draw, too bad. Do it anyway.

Mind mapping can be an excellent way to get visual about abstract ideas. For example, check out the design thinking mind map used in Change By Design, which you also can see in my recent post, “Start Designing Your Life.

There were nearly two hundred likes on this and a discussion had kicked off which seemed fairly one-sided, with 42 people all agreeing with this premise in one form or another. Oddly they had all used words to express this agreement and not one picture could be seen.

I had to add the contrary view, and did so as follows:

I respectfully disagree with some of the premises in this article. We think with language – I defy anyone to frame a conceptual thought without it – and human language, at least the ones I know, bases on words.

I have looked at Mind Mapping and some of the other inventions of Tony Buzan, I have read several of his books and remain skeptical as to the practical use of them. As far as mind mapping is concerned, its main use in my opinion is to give people of an artistic bent an excuse for doodling in meetings, and at least some direction to the doodling they’d probably be doing anyway.

A tabular approach wins out every time – the human brain loves tables and rectangular things. That’s why we live in rectangular rooms in rectangular buildings with rectangular furniture. Placing any problem into a table immediately highlights areas which are uncovered, and ensures deeper and more consistent thinking on any topic. Even “out of the box” thinking is only possible if you’ve defined a box. None of this happens with mind-maps, which ensure a very subjective and random summary of any topic.

I thought it was worth taking a contrary position and maybe getting some thought and discussion going, so please don’t be offended at my detraction from your premise, which is certainly not intended in an agressive spirit.

I thought we could find out whether the mind-mapping is actually popular among the people who follow or at least stumble upon this service, so please take part in the following poll:

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Baker Tilly Hungary Business and Tax Newsletter 5/2012

December 27, 2012 Leave a comment

Tisztelt Hölgyem/Uram,

A Baker Tilly Hungária legutóbbi „Business & Tax Newsletter” című kiadványát

a következő linkre kattintva tekinthet meg: Newsletter 5/2012

Az elmúlt hónapokban az Országgyűlés több adózást érintő törvénymódosítást fogadott el, amelyek 2013. január 1-től lépnek hatályba. Hírlevelünkben arra törekedtünk, hogy azon változásokat, amelyek sokakat érintenek, azonban csak a vállalkozások kis részének van konkrét tennivalója és bevallási kötelezettsége – pl. közműadó – csak megemlítjük. Ugyanakkor kiemelünk néhány olyan témát, amelyek kevésbé közismertek, de véleményünk szerint megismerésük előnyös lehet az önök számára

Hírlevelünk Acrobat Reader szoftverrel olvasható, mely ingyenesen letölthetõ a következõ helyről:
http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep2.html

Amennyiben hírlevelünket hasznosnak találja, és szeretné, hogy mások is megkapják, vagy a jövőben

nem szeretné, hogy hírlevelünket megküldjük Önnek, akkor kérjük, ezt a newsletter

címre küldött e-mail-ben jelezze.

Tax Alert December 2012 Baker Tilly Slovakia

December 18, 2012 Leave a comment

Baker Tilly

TAX ALERT | SLOVAKIA
December 2012		 Baker Tilly
Amendments to the law on Value Added taxThe invoice directive is introduced into the law on Value Added tax effective from 1st January 2013. The aim of the directive is the extension of invoices in electronic formats and to achieve identical usage of paper invoices and invoices in electronic formatThe invoice directive modifies the content of invoices on delivery of goods and services in country, on delivery of goods to the another member state, on delivery of services to the another member state, on retrieving of goods from another member state and on receiving services from abroad, on a uniform basis. According to directive, an invoice issued by a taxpayer must contain:

the name and the address of the seat, place of business or fixed establishment of the taxable person, his tax identification number, by which the goods or services are delivered,
the name and the address of the seat, place of business, fixed establishment or domicile of the recipient of the goods or services and his tax identification number,
the sequential number of the invoice,
the date of the supply of goods or services, or the date of incoming payment, if this date can be determined and if it differs from the invoice issuance date,
the invoice issuance date,
the quantity and type of the goods supplied or the extent and type of service rendered,
the taxable amount per each tax rate, the unit price excluding tax and the reductions and discounts, if these are not included in the unit price,
the applied tax rate or indication of tax exemption; for tax exemption must be stated the reference to the clause of the Act on value added tax or Council Directive 2006/112/ES of November 2006 on the common system of value added tax as amended or information “the supply of goods is exempted from VAT”,
the full tax amount to be paid in Euros, except the amount of tax applied pursuant to a special arrangements applicable to works of art, collectors´ items, antiques and second-hand goods,
the information “the invoice issued by customer”, if the customer, who is the recipient of good or service, issued the invoice,
the information “reverse charge”, when the person liable for payment of tax is the person to whom the goods or service were supplied.

The invoice directive, as incorporated in the Act on value added tax effective from 1st January 2013, provides a uniform deadline for issuing of invoices – the invoice has to be issued within 15 days:

from the date of supply of goods or services,
from the date of the received payment prior to the supply of goods or service,
from the end of month, in which was supply of goods exempt from tax pursuant §43,
from the end of month, in which the service was provide or the payment received before the provision of service has been completed with the place of supply in another Member State.

The directive also allows for aggregate invoicing for periods longer than a calendar month.

Act on the restriction on cash payments

According to the approved Act, effective from 1st January 2013, a cash payment with value exceeding 5.000 € is not possible (valid for legal entities and individual businesspeople); between individual non-entrepreneurs payment in cash over 15.000 € is prohibited.

The value of the cash payment, which is divided into several separate payments and these payments arise from a single legal relationship, is the sum of those payments.

Cash payments agreed before the entry into force of this Act, the value of which exceeds the amount limited by the Act, may be made up to 31st March 2013.
Bratislava
Eva Belková
Managing Director
Karadžičova 16
821 08 Bratislava
Slovak Republic
Tel: +421 250 203 302
Email: ebelkova		 Bratislava
Vladimír Bartoš
Head of Accounting Department
Karadžičova 16
821 08 Bratislava
Slovak Republic
Tel: +421 250 203 304
Email: vbartos
Disclaimer: The information contained in this material is general and does not provide a comprehensive analysis of these topics. Despite the fact that we try to ensure the timeliness and accuracy of the information contained in this material, we cannot guarantee that it will still be valid on the date it is read. Therefore users of this information should not base any business or investment decisions on it without first discussing the matter with a professional advisor. Our initial consultation is free.Privacy & Disclaimer Feedback
Baker Tilly Slovakia Accounting s.r.o. and Baker Tilly Slovakia Audit s.r.o. are independent member firms of Baker Tilly International which is the world’s 8th largest accountancy and business advisory network by combined fee income of its independent members. Baker Tilly International member firms specialise in providing accountancy and business advisory services to entrepreneurial, growing businesses and mid-market corporates worldwide.
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The Money Value of Time

December 18, 2012 Leave a comment

The National Audit Office building, built orig...

The National Audit Office building, built originally as the Imperial Airways Empire Terminal. The statue, “Speed Wings over the World” is by Eric Broadbent” (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

According to page 2 of today’s UK Financial Times, a UK National Audit Office report shows over 6.5m people waited more than 10 minutes to get their calls answered by HMRC, adding £33m to customer’s phone bills and wasting £103m of their time last year.

This snippet of information triggered a few things that I wanted to say to you this morning. The first of these is, that, despite the fact that it is obviously pretty dire that people need to wait so long to get their calls answered by the service they are paying taxes to fund in the first place, at least in the UK there is a body which is concerened at the loss of time and places a value, in monetary terms, on that loss of time by the customer.

Anyone who has spent any time either in government offices, or even banks or supermarkets in this part of the world will probably confirm that the idea that the customer’s time is valuable and should be respected is a rather alien concept. Not so long ago it was an utterly alien concept, but even today it is still a concept which they find rather hard to grasp.

Not as bad as China, though, from what I heard and also saw. People being expected to queue all day outside the Chinese consulate for their visa and then at the very moment that the scheduled closing time of the office came the shutters come down like with Kiosk Keith and that was that. The spare time of the employees was utterly sacrosanct, that of the customer not at all. This of course shows an elitist mentality, which can be found in almost all state sector offices to one or another degree anywhere in the world. Expect it and try somehow to deal with it.

Much less acceptable is the wasting of the customer’s time in business. If the customer is paying then they have a right to have their matters expedited and people who keep people waiting ought either to invest in more infrastructure to avoid it or to wonder if they are in the right business. Read more…

Polly Toynbee speaks uncomfortable truth about Big Four Accounting Firms in Guardian Newspaper

December 11, 2012 Leave a comment

British journalist and writer Polly Toynbee, p...

British journalist and writer Polly Toynbee, pictured at the “National Poverty Hearing” at Westminster; December 2006. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Writing in the UK Guardian today, (page 31 – if you cannot buy the paper, you’ll find it among the related articles below assuming it is still available if you are reading this in a few weeks), Polly Toynbee accuses the Big Four of being “at the heart of almost every tax-avoiding scheme”. She proceeds to comment on their grip of the audit market and that, despite grave failures in auditing the banks they have not been disciplined by professional bodies.

Thank you, Ms Toynbee! We at Quoracy.com would just add that their immense lobbying power at the level of governments and regulatory institutions – their virtual control as a cartel of almost every regulatory insitution for audit in the EU – has made them almost impossible to punish. At the same time the middle tier audit Firms, with far fewer blemishes on their records, are bearing a proportionately greater brunt of the reforms that these Big Four governed or influenced “independent” bodies have enacted or are in the process of enacting.

No doubt they hope that they can pass their latest trick of raising the audit thresholds, in which the hidden agenda is to weaken the next tier down from the Big Four even more in the hope that some of the firms disappear (already appears to be happening to PKF from what was spoken about at their recent Cuba conference, and the merging into BDO of three already of their G20 firms) and that others will tone down or give up their audit offer. After which time, of course, they will no doubt be ready to lower the thresholds once again, in order to grab what they can from the reduced state of their mid-tier competition.

You heard it here first. Or maybe you know it already. If you’ve been running a mid-tier audit firm, you probably know it only too well…

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Intellectual Property administered properly on an international basis…

December 5, 2012 Leave a comment

Baker Tilly Poland’s consulting division, teamed up with specialist lawyers in the IP area is now offering a service of outsourced administration of your IP rights – it’s based on a meeting at which they analyse all the possible identifiable rights that have value in your organisation or enterprise and ensure that the protection of them is properly organised – from registering trademarks and preparing patent registrations in a range of international jurisdictions though to ensuring that you get a good deal on pursuing those who infringe your rights.  For more details write to Tomasz Ataman on tataman@bakertilly.pl

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