Blue Penguin

22/04/2026

We love our new office. But the walls are quite bare.

Before we put up soulless "hotel art", what do you think would go well here?

What's on your walls at the office? 🖼️

Looking for some inspiration!

17/04/2026

Same same but different over here...

13/04/2026

I just called HMRC on behalf of a client.

They picked up after about 2 minutes on hold. 🫨

I'm off to buy a lottery ticket now.

25/03/2026

Few things boil my p*ss as much as press releases from the government clapping themselves on the back for various increases in people's pay packets from year to year.

At no point do they seem to reflect that, in fact, it's business owners up and down the country who are actually footing the bill for this.

So, heck, a little bit of credit to UK business owners would be nice.

23/03/2026

Conceptually, I think this is an excellent idea.

All this information is readily available (and much, much more) in HMRC's manuals.

But - and I say this as an accountant - oh my lord they are DULL.

If they can convert it into relatable, useful information which will help taxpayers understand a bit more about who tax works, I'm all for it.

Be interesting to see how many people do actually use it.

HMRC launches Tax Confident, a new website to help people understand tax in plain, simple terms.

16/03/2026

Don't be this guy. Ever.

15/03/2026

I'm absolutely not inciting violence with this post.

Nor is there a specific 37% tax rate.

But as we gear up for another UK tax season, it's still remarkable to think that the top rate of marginal tax in the UK for an employed or self-employed person is now effectively 62%.

And that's before you factor in things like loss of tax-free childcare if you've got kids at nursery.

Or the 9% student loan repayments which sometimes don't even cover the interest on the loan.

And so on...

04/03/2026

It's shameful (and surprising) that the IPC are even more in the pockets of russia than the IOC.

Or, at least, I can't think of another reason why they're letting russians bring their flags to the paralympics.

I love winter sports but I won't be watching any of this. Not that my viewing figure loss will affect the IPC's friendship with Putin.

27/02/2026

All accountants have clients like this, hovering just under the VAT threshold and scared to go just £1 over, because they'll have to give the gov't about 16% of all their sales.

The issue is that, unlike most other taxes, it's a cliff edge, rather than a progressive tax.

Let's be clear - a turnover of £90K isn't the same as a £90K profit (which would be very nice indeed); If you run a cafe, you can expect to make a profit margin after wages and food costs (both of which themselves have little to no VAT on) of about 30%.

So you're making perhaps £30K a year.

But, make sales of £90,001 and all of a sudden your costs are pretty similar but you've lost £15K of revenue at a stroke. 🙈

Raising the VAT threshold itself isn't the answer. Wherever you set it, businesses will be scared to grow beyond that point, so you'll still be stifling growth in the economy.

Instead - like personal tax - it should be tapered so, for example, you only pay VAT on your sales OVER £90,000.

That's my two pence anyway.

15/02/2026

Public Service Announcement for all SEO consultants / Google Ads people / website designers etc:

Perhaps starting your unsolicited pitch with "I came across your website" probably isn't the best way to tell me how you can help me rank higher on Google.... 🤷‍♂️