What does last month's election mean for tax pracs?

The fiscal cliff, once a seeming imaginary event far off on the horizon, is looming large as we approach the beginning of 2013 with a divided government. The cliff, a combination of tax increases and government spending cuts, threatens to send the country deeper into another recession, according to economists from the Congressional Budget Office.

In the immediate aftermath of the election, House Speaker John Boehner had indicated a willingness to work with President Barack Obama to avoid January's fiscal cliff, and said that he was open to the idea of increased revenues if it can be accomplished without raising tax rates. President Obama said that he intended to work with Congress to avoid tax hikes on the middle class, but refused to rule out increasing taxes on the wealthy.

The stark differences between the two parties means that a compromise will be difficult to achieve, according to Larry Peck, a New York-based tax specialist and estate planner. For that reason, many of the well-to-do are planning for a sunset of the Bush tax cuts: "Many of my clients, for example, are transferring up to $10.24 million (per couple) of assets to trusts for their heirs before the gift tax exemption is dropped to $1 million."

RACING THE YEAR'S END

While many wealthyclients are concerned about making large gifts that will diminish their liquid assets and cash flow, Peck indicated that with proper planning, the high exemption benefit can be preserved while still satisfying liquid net worth and cash flow concerns: "This can be done through 'spousal lifetime access trusts' or SLATs -- a trust which permits each spouse to create a trust from which the other spouse can receive distributions, and at the same time remove the trust assets from both of their taxable estates."

Others will consider selling their business, real estate or stocks before year end to capitalize on the lower capital gains tax rate, he predicted. "Investors with dividend-paying stocks may consider selling them in favor of growth stocks because of the potential tax increase on dividends from 15 percent to 39.6 percent. Employees who have the option of receiving their bonuses in 2012 may want to take advantage of that," he said. "The bottom line is that year-end tax planning has taken on a special significance this year given the potential for significant tax increases next year."

Although the president's victory was decisive, the margin does not necessarily give him a mandate, according to Jim Daniels, managing director at UHY Advisors NY in Albany. "We're already seeing signs that the Republicans may soften their prior stance regarding tax increases in order to avoid being viewed as obstructionist," he said. "In regard to individual taxes, the so-called payroll tax holiday of 2 percent expires on Dec. 31, 2012. This tax savings approximated $2,000 a year for an individual making $100,000. The loss of the payroll tax holiday would affect all individuals ... . There is a good possibility this could be modified or extended given the fragile economy."

There is a possibility that the rate increases caused by the expiration of the Bush cuts could be delayed for six months or a year, Daniels said. "Given the desire not to derail the economy, there should be some action.I believe a compromise will be reached, because at this point, both parties have nothing to gain by seeing the economy derailed again given the recent slight upturn."



PLANNING FOR BUSINESSES

From a corporate tax perspective, there has been talk about lowering the federal rate to 25 percent, said Chuck Sockett, managing director at UHY Advisors in Manhattan, N.Y.

"Such a move would put the federal tax on par with most of the rates in the Westernized world and may be the catalyst needed for companies to invest in the U.S. and not overseas," he said. "On the job-creation front, we're watching to see if Congress will extend and expand the research and experimentation credit, which has the potential for job creation through continued investment of capital into developing new products and technology."

Joe Falanga, a managing director at UHY Advisors in New York, believes that the Obama administration's proposed legislative initiatives to close estate and gift tax loopholes will all be up for negotiation. "If Congress does nothing, on January 1 the estate tax will revert to pre-Bush-era law. The exemption will be $1,000,000 and the top tax rate will be 55 percent," he said. "At this point, the GOP does not want to be seen as obstructionist. We're already hearing that the current $5,120,000 exemption and 35 percent tax rate will be in play. The administration has consistently supported a $3,500,000 exemption and 45 percent tax rate. Any new exemption and tax rate will have to be negotiated and will likely be overshadowed by the looming fight over income tax rates."

The current political environment is highly perilous, said Stephen Breitstone, tax partner with Mineola, N.Y.-based Meltzer Lippe, Goldstein & Breitstone LLP. "There are such strong philosophical differences at the extremes and an apparent unwillingness to compromise."

At a recent panel on tax policy that he chaired at the New York University Institute on Federal Taxation, Breitstone noted that some of the leading policy experts "could not come to a consensus as to a fix to the fiscal cliff and looming budgetary crisis. There does not seem to be a neat and practical fix," he said. "I fear that the country will not get serious about tax and budgetary reform until we reach crisis mode. That will not be pretty."

That said, there are some things that simply have to be done immediately, Breitstone said. "I am not sure we can avoid going over the fiscal cliff, but the lame-duck Congress needs to work hard to put it off at least for a little while. A short-term extension of certain Bush tax cuts is warranted, as well as the Alternative Minimum Tax patch. If the AMT patch is not passed for 2012 by year end, people subject to the AMT will have to pay higher taxes for 2012 than they budgeted for."

"It will be very difficult for the IRS to implement the patch retroactively," Breitstone cautioned. "It really should be for the new Congress to make the bigger changes - if they can figure out what to do. But we need a package that involves some additional revenues, cuts in spending and, most importantly, growth. The only way we can change the course is to stimulate growth in the economy -- and right now the uncertainty and divisiveness is not conducive to stimulating growth."



PROMISE OF COMPROMISE?

Dean Zerbe, national managing director of alliantgroup LP, agreed. "Washington is still clearing its head from the election night, but comments by Speaker Boehner against any increase in tax rates suggest both a hard road ahead and a path to deal," he said. While the Republicans will continue to fight against rate increases, it may be a signal of a willingness to limit deductions for wealthy individuals - as was proposed by Governor Romney in his campaign and put forward by the Republicans in the Super Committee deliberations. It would be helpful to the economy and jobs if Washington could make a decisions now on taxes and have it be permanent.

Although most in the profession were hoping that the election would give some clues about the future of tax policy, with the election over we find we are right where we started, said Roger Harris, president of Padgett Business Services.

"Before the end of the year, much needs to get done and the same people are in charge," he said. "The only positive is that we are as far away from the next election as we will ever be, so will somebody emerge as a leader and get us out of this mess? The results seem to make it more likely that tax rates could rise on high-income taxpayers, though the House Republicans have promised they will not allow that to happen. But something must be done or taxes will go up on everybody, and nobody wants that to happen."

"If there is an attempt to find a long-term, bipartisan solution to our tax mess, some type of tax reform may provide that opportunity, particularly if it is combined with a serious attempt to reduce the deficit," said Harris. "Tax reform could provide the revenue the Democrats insist on and give cover to the Republicans that refuse to raise rates. But this too will take leadership from somebody."

"The good news is that if all else fails, we are only two years away from the next election," he added.

Azure Global’s vision is to be widely recognised as a reputed firm of financial business advisors, achieving real growth for ambitious companies and to become the first choice for F&A outsourcing for accountancy practices and businesses alike for more info visit our site Azure Global and join us On Facebbok

FASB Chair Looks to New IASB Relationship

Financial Accounting Standards Board chair Leslie Seidman is planning for a multilateral way of working with the International Accounting Standards Board in the future, even as her term approaches an end next year.

In an interview in late October with Accounting Today, Seidman talked about the status of FASB's decade-long convergence efforts with the IASB and how the two standard-setters will be working together with other accounting organizations even after the memorandum of understanding they signed in 2002 in Norwalk, Conn., known as the Norwalk Agreement, expires. Overall, she characterized the 10-year convergence effort as a success.

"Even though we do expect our relationship with the IASB to change from the bilateral sort of partnership arrangement that we've had in recent years, that does not mean that convergence is over or that divergence is going to start to occur," she said. "In the early days of our relationship, we had what I would call a 'best efforts' approach and we accomplished a lot. It seems to me that going forward we can continue to achieve a lot even if the nature and structure of our relationship changes. We plan to continue to work cooperatively with the IASB and other standard-setters around the world to continue to improve our standards here in the U.S., as well as global accounting standards, and make them more comparable."

When asked why the convergence effort is perceived to be endangered amid report of disagreements between the two boards on issues such as the impairment of financial instruments, Seidman responded, "That's why we thought it was important to take a broader look at where this started and where it's gone. It seems to me that there is more than one approach to achieving comparability in accounting standards. What we're suggesting is that there are ways to work together cooperatively to identify opportunities for improvement and opportunities for reaching converged solutions on standards short of, one, the bilateral relationship that we have had in recent years, in other words, an intense side-by-side convergence program; or two, on the other side, an adoption program where the only way you can get to comparability is by adopting a set of standards. We think there's a lot of room in between there."

Seidman also commented on the impact of the Securities and Exchange Commission's staff reports on IFRS and the lack of a decision by the SEC on whether to incorporate IFRS into the U.S. financial reporting system.

"Even if the SEC's decision is deferred for some time, we still absolutely see the opportunity and reality of working together cooperatively, sharing information, and converging on standards, putting aside any of those specific ways of proceeding," she said.

Seidman noted that there are various ways to achieve global standards beyond the convergence process that FASB and the IASB have followed since 2002. "If you're of the view that there's only one way to gain global comparability, you might not understand that there are other ways to achieve comparability," she explained, referring to the IFRS Foundation report that was sent in response to the SEC staff's final report on IFRS.

"I thought one of the most important elements of that report included the discussion of the accounting standards forum. The idea was to form a network of global accounting standards-setters to meet periodically and discuss topics of common interest. If you consider that the IASB currently has an advisory group made up of preparers and an advisory group made up of investors, I think it makes a lot of sense to set up an advisory group of accounting standards-setters from around the world, some of which will have adopted IFRS and some of which will not have. But at the end of the day, if you want global comparability, it's got to include the U.S., and it's got to include some of the other major capital markets in the world, regardless of their current status relating to adoption or incorporation or other acceptance of IFRS. It shows that there are various ways to work together to end up with comparable standards."

Seidman noted that national standard-setters, such as FASB in the U.S., the Accounting Standards Board of Japan and the European Financial Reporting Advisory Group, are "the boots on the ground" in their jurisdictions.

"We have expertise with regard to the U.S. environment, what U.S. preparers need, what U.S. investors want, etc., and we know how to gain input here that can inform the development of the accounting standards," she said. "It seems to me to make total sense to leverage the expertise of the national standard-setters and feed that information into a global process as we're developing global accounting standards. We're very eager to participate in that initiative with other standard-setters and we think that at the end of the day it should lead to more timely identification of issues so that they can be worked through to end up with comparable standards. And I think it also will contribute to the acceptance of the standards in various jurisdictions around the world."

Seidman noted that some countries have adopted IFRS and some countries have only committed to IFRS, but not yet adopted it. Others have needed to make adjustments and carve-outs, as in Europe for some aspects of the financial instruments standards, in China for government-controlled entities, and in Canada for rate-regulated utilities. "You see that in certain jurisdictions the standard-setter or whoever is responsible for endorsement has to make some tweaks to deal with jurisdictional issues," she said. "We accept that. We think that's inevitable. What we're concerned about is calling that the same thing. It's really a truth-in-labeling issue."

Seidman noted that the SEC's report on the so-called "condorsement" approach said the U.S. is likely to keep the term "U.S. GAAP" for practical reasons such as legislation that explicitly refers to U.S. GAAP, while incorporating as much of IFRS as possible.

"It's a truth-in-labeling issue because we're going to have, at least as a transitional matter, certain items where we have standards right now that are not addressed in IFRS," said Seidman. "Let's not pretend that it's the same everywhere. Let's just be very transparent about the extent of commonality and the extent of difference. It could very well be a transitional manner, whereas others seem keen on calling it IFRS even where there are differences."

Seidman was asked about warnings that the U.S. is going to lose "most favored nation" status in having influence over IFRS after the regular joint meetings between the IASB and FASB come to an end. European Commission internal markets commissioner Michel Barnier recently sent a message to the IASB criticizing the process, reportedly saying that 2011 and 2012 had been years of wasted opportunity, and 2013 would be a year of truth for convergence.

"In terms of the frustration with the timing on the projects, let me just reiterate that the decision to pare down the agenda was widely supported, including by the Monitoring Board of the IASB as well as stakeholders here in the U.S.," said Seidman. "Then the decision to re-expose revenue recognition and leasing [standards] were widely supported decisions. Clearly they had the effect of extending the timeframes. On financial instruments, clearly impairment is taking longer than we would have hoped, but it's extremely important that at the end of the day, we have a standard that restores confidence in financial reporting. When we have evidence that companies are confused by what we mean and raise serious concerns about ambiguity in provisions, we don't have a realistic expectation that comparable reporting is going to result. So when we're faced with that kind of feedback, we feel it's our responsibility to address it before we move forward with a final standard. That takes time. We think the time is well spent if at the end of the day we end up with an improved standard."

Seidman insisted that the time had not been wasted. "We do believe that what we have achieved so far has been important and substantive and has had the effect of significantly improving comparability on some of the most material differences that had previously existed," she said. "We do think that having a network of standard-setters from around the world working together will give us the opportunity to continue with that progress. I think that we can all work together on this. Sometimes the IASB will take the lead. In fact, in many cases, the IASB will take the lead, and we will work cooperatively within that system to, for example, provide input at various stages in the process, expose the documents in the U.S., with the goal of participating and trying to reach a consistent conclusion. But in other cases, I can see FASB taking the lead or Japan taking the lead, or another standard-setter taking the lead on an issue based, for example, on their expertise, availability of resources, etc., and feeding that research and work product into the process, so that we could end up with the opportunity to have global standards that are devised in various ways. In other words, I don't think there's only one way to achieve globally comparable standards."

Azure Global’s vision is to be widely recognised as a reputed firm of financial business advisors, achieving real growth for ambitious companies and to become the first choice for F&A outsourcing for accountancy practices and businesses alike for more info visit our site Azure Global and join us On Facebbok

Your Clients Are Ready to Move Up ...

Why tax season is the right time to upsell your clients to financial planning services

The continuing economic crisis offers accountants an opportunity to reach beyond their normal compliance work and benefit their clients.
Financial advisors who aren't CPAs have taken a brutal beating in the last several years," said Mark Merenda, president of Naples, Fla.-based Smart Marketing. "Whether they charge on a fee or an asset basis, it's been a tough couple of years."
Moreover, a fair amount of clients want to blame their financial advisors for the tough times, he indicated: "People who are unhappy with their investments will be more willing to consider making a change in their advisors. Accountants are respected as being cautious and prudent with their clients' money, which is exactly what most investors want today."
CPAs start with a number of advantages, he said. "They're absolutely in a position of trust with their clients. Most people will not have complete trust in their lawyer or financial advisor, but it's hard to find people that don't have trust in their CPA."
"And they start with an advantage that my lawyer clients would love to have," he said. "That is that the end client has to engage with the CPA at a minimum of once a year at tax time, with people who are more affluent probably engaging quarterly. It's a big advantage if the customer has to come to you."
At a minimum, that's where the accountant can bring up current opportunities and pitfalls, according to Merenda. "This year's obvious example is the opportunity to gift large amounts without tax consequences. It expires at the end of the year, so it's a good reason for the accountant to touch base with the client to remind them of this."

ONLY CONNECT
Everything in the world of insurance and investments has some tax effect, and the frequent lack of communication between CPAs and investment professionals means that the clients will suffer, according to Kansas City, Mo.-based CPA John Azodi.
"As a CPA, I'm doing their taxes and investments, I'm aware of what the consequences will be and I can take that into consideration. For most individuals, what they think of their tax bracket and what it really is, is a mile apart," he said. "Every individual thinks they pay 30 or 33 percent, but in reality the majority are paying 15 percent on their federal, plus state. ... When they tell their financial advisor their bracket, the type of investment he makes will be different. He may be buying municipal bonds where it's not necessary."
The biggest reason and the one that drove Azodi to get licensed for his own clients was his discovery that clients often ask their CPAs about investing, but will not follow up with the actions because they have to deal with another person that they do not know or trust. "I explained the advantages of the Roth IRA to my clients in 2008," he explained. "People said it sounded great, and 40 said they would do it, but only two of them actually took the step and went through with it. When I asked them why, they said it was too much trouble to get to know someone else. So I got my license that summer, and the next year I opened up more than 50 accounts. ... For many of them it created a new habit, because they were able to see how $50 a month over time adds up. So I am doing my clients a favor, and I am creating more revenue because I get paid commissions or a fee. But the best part is that my clients are more financially stable."
It is also more convenient for the client to have everything done in one place, he said. "They see me at least once a year. It's convenient to do their investments on top of the tax returns, because I already have their tax brackets, and how the income was generated. If they were at another advisor, the advisor may just ask the client to give them a ballpark figure, and the client will take a guess."

FINDING ALLIES
CPAs that decide to provide financial planning, investment and insurance services to their clients can choose to do it on their own, or associate with one of the firms dedicated to helping tax and accounting professionals integrate financial services into their practice. David Hajek, a CPA and attorney, left a regional CPA firm to set up a financial practice that partners with Raymond James. It's a natural fit for an accountant to add or transition to financial planning, he indicated.
"CPAs know the clients' financial and tax situations backwards and forwards," he said. About 3 percent of his business is product-based, while 97 percent is fee-based. "We may provide an annuity once or twice a year if the client needs a guarantee as far as performance is concerned," he said.
The tax professional is uniquely qualified to provide financial advice to the client, agreed Roger Ochs, president of H.D. Vest Financial Services. "The financial information on the return is the Holy Grail. And they also have a personal relationship with the client - we call it the unfair advantage," he said.
And the need for financial planning and advice will escalate in the years ahead, according to Ochs. "As Baby Boomers retire, they're looking to satisfy their cash needs," he said. "They're transitioning from being accumulators to being distributors, and they're making decisions that require more advice than when they were accumulators. The tax professional is uniquely qualified to provide this."
The typical accountant/financial advisor is not a salesman, emphasized Enrique Vasquez, president of Cetera Financial Specialists (formerly Genworth Financial Investment Services). "They are running a successful accounting and tax practice. They want to listen to their clients, solve their needs, and provide solutions. What we do is make it as easy as possible for them to do that."
A new platform, Premiere Portfolio Management, gives advisors flexibility to create client portfolios the way they want. "They don't have to know about every type of product - we help them with that," said Vasquez. "And we help them on getting licensed, setting up their practice, and advise them on hiring staff and marketing their services."

A SHORT LIST
There are five reasons driving the move of accountants into wealth management, according to David Knoch, president of broker-dealer 1st Global. "Many CPA firms are already in wealth management without realizing it, by transitioning business out to a local practitioner," he said. "If you think about a professional services firm, it's valued on a multiple of gross revenues. If that's the case, giving up revenue to a local provider amounts to giving up enterprise value for nothing in return. No CPA would coach someone to freely give up enterprise value."
The second reason is utilitarian, Knoch observed. "It's practical for the CPA to get into the business. They're already familiar with financial statements and concepts. It takes a CPA about 30 percent of the time it takes anybody else to get the necessary licenses. They don't have to study very hard, and their pass rates are high. They're already involved."
Then there's the third reason -- being in wealth management is a strong addition to the CPA firm brand, he noted. "The more breadth they offer to clients, the stickier the relationships will be and the more resilient they can be against the competition," he said. "It's important to strengthen the brand, and wealth management is the way to do this."
For many, it comes down to an emotional reason -- the enjoyment CPAs get from solving complex problems and doing good for people, he explained.
But the most important reason for CPAs to get involved with their clients' finances is a moral calling, according to Knoch. "The CPA is going to see the client's financial statements as part of the relationship they have today," he said. "The CPAs we have talked to asked themselves, 'What is this financial advisor doing to my client?' They say they could no longer sit idly by and see the financial statements and do nothing about it."

Azure Global’s vision is to be widely recognised as a reputed firm of financial business advisors, achieving real growth for ambitious companies and to become the first choice for F&A outsourcing for accountancy practices and businesses alike for more info visit our site Azure Global and join us On Facebbok

Finance and Accounting Outsourcing to Rebound

The finance and accounting outsourcing market is expected to rebound this year, with 10 to 15 percent growth, following a slowdown last year.
The market is expected to top $4 billion to $4.5 billion in annual contract value, according to the Everest Group’s
Last year, the annual contract value for multi-process finance and accounting outsourcing grew 11 percent, compared to 18 percent in 2010. Total contract values of new engagements also fell last year, compared to 2010, according to the report. The market reached $3.8 billion in annual contract value last year, representing approximately $32 billion in total spending on finance and accounting outsourcing.

“Although the market witnessed slower than expected growth levels last year, we nevertheless saw strong growth with nearly 200 contracts for new, extended and renewed contracts,” said Everest Group vice president Saurabh Gupta in a statement. “Along with fewer new contracts signed and some terminations, we also saw a drop in size of multi-process contracts largely due to cautious buyers opting for risk-averse phased approaches. Looking forward, we expect to see buyers continue to focus on cost plus value proposition solutions that are comprehensive, industry-specific, and end-to-end process driven.”

Finance and accounting outsourcing represents a $150-200 billion opportunity, according to the report, split equally across third-party service providers and captives/shared services. The current penetration of the third-party sourcing market represents only 5 to 10 percent of the overall potential, implying a significant value creation opportunity.

Last year, the market reached an all-time high in contract extensions that, along with contract expansions, represented 70 percent of annual contract value growth in 2011. The study predicts organic growth to continue as contracts valued at $7.3 billion or more are up for extension within the next three years.

Accenture, IBM and Genpact together account for 50 percent of the finance and accounting outsourcing market in terms of annual contract value. In 2011, Accenture, Capgemini and Infosys BPO signed the highest number of new contracts. Accenture, TCS, and IBM accounted for about 50 percent of total contract value signed in 2011, including new contracts, renewals and extensions.

“Competition in the FAO market is gaining intensity,” said Gupta. “The market share of the top three providers has reduced from 65 percent to 50 percent over the last five years. Over the past two years, providers have continued to build up scale and invest significantly across various F&A capability dimensions, most notably around technology. However, service providers’ ability to understand the client context continues to be a significant credibility gap.”

Other service providers’ performances analyzed in the report include Cognizant, Datamatics, EXL, HP, HCL, Intelenet, IQ BackOffice, iGate-Patni, Aditya Birla Minacs, Serco, Steria, Sutherland Global Services, Tech Mahindra, WNS, Wipro, Xchanging and Xerox.

Strong market adoption was seen across most industries, with manufacturing, financial services, high tech and telecom, and professional services accounting for about 60 percent of all finance and accounting outsourcing contracts in 2011. The United States accounted for over half of total FAO contracts in 2011, while the Asia-Pacific region emerged as an aggressive adopter and Europe witnessed a slowdown.

Last year, 60 percent of new finance and accounting outsourcing contracts were signed by organizations with less than $5 billion in revenue, compared to less than 40 percent in 2008-2010. Adoption rates in 2011 for the small and midsize business segment, defined as organizations with less than $1 billion in revenues, doubled over the previous year.

Buyers continue to focus on an end-to-end process-driven approach to FAO, as opposed to a traditional functional and piecemeal approach.  Nearly 50 percent of the new contracts in 2011 had elements of end-to-end scope (such as procure-to-pay, order-to-cash, record-to-report).

The market saw a shift from an offshore-centric to a balanced onshore-nearshore-offshore model. While nearly 90 percent of the FAO FTE mix continues to be offshore-/nearshore-centric, 2011 witnessed a significant increase in onshore delivery centers.

In 2010, technology augmentation emerged as the new “normal,” a trend that continued in 2011 as nearly 45 percent of the new contracts signed in 2010-2011 included service provider add-on tools such as workflows, interfaces, document management, business process management, business intelligence and user portals/dashboards.

Azure Global’s vision is to be widely recognised as a reputed firm of financial business advisors, achieving real growth for ambitious companies and to become the first choice for F&A outsourcing for accountancy practices and businesses alike for more info visit our site Azure Global and join us On Facebbok

UK inflation rate declines to 2.4%

The inflation rate, measure by CPI (consumer price index) in UK has fallen to 2.4% in June compared with 2.8% in May. The RPI (retail price index) showed that housing cost fell from 3.1% to 2.8%. Transportation costs were also down by 0.5%.

This is good news as it is the 3^rd consecutive month that CPI has fallen. If this trend continues then UK will see a return of growth in real disposable income. The fall in inflation rate brings UK closer to the target of 2% set by the Bank of England. The stimulus program of the Bank seems to be working as it promised, earlier this month, to inject £50bn in the economy over the next four months through QE (quantitative easing). This would bring total size of the program to £375bn

Azure Global’s vision is to be widely recognised as a reputed firm of financial business advisors, achieving real growth for ambitious companies and to become the first choice for F&A outsourcing for accountancy practices and businesses alike for more info visit our site Azure Global and join us On Facebbok

House prices fall by 0.1% in July

House prices have seen its first decline in 7 months mainly due to the rising gap between demand and supply as the no. of potential buyers continue to shrink. The number of potential buyers fell by 2.4% while the number of houses on sale rose by 1.4%. The largest gap was seen in the South-east where potential buyers shrunk by 3.4%.

While the overall market fell by 0.1%, London was the only city to register increase in house prices, in July, by 1%. It should also be noted that London had an above-average fall of 2.4% in number of potential buyers. While house prices in North-east England were worst hit with a price fall of 0.5%

Usually the property markets shrinks in summer but this year the fall in prices has come earlier than expected. And experts believe that the prices will continue to fall in the coming months.

Azure Global’s vision is to be widely recognised as a reputed firm of financial business advisors, achieving real growth for ambitious companies and to become the first choice for F&A outsourcing for accountancy practices and businesses alike for more info visit our site Azure Global and join us On Facebbok

UK Chancellor announces Funding For Lending program

UK’s Chancellor, George Osborne, has announced that Funding For Lending (FFL), which is a joint initiate of the Bank of England and Treasury, is likely to replace the National Load Guarantee Scheme (NLGS). Under FFL money will be made available to the banks at low interest rates, which is expected to be as low as 0.25%, provided then pass it on to businesses and households.

FFL will provide banks with money for up to 4 years and it is expected to attract more banks than the NLGS because it will help banks avoid volatility in wholesale debt markets.

It is believed that FFL will encourage banks to be more willing to provide loans as the cost of FFL will be directly linked to the banks’ lending performance. Under FFL, every £1 of lent by the bank will qualify it for an extra £1 of cheap funding. On the other hand, cost of scheme will rise for those banks who will reduce their lending levels.

It is hoped that competition among banks to access cheaper funding will reduce the cost of borrowing for consumers and businesses as well as increasing the supply of credit.

Azure Global’s vision is to be widely recognised as a reputed firm of financial business advisors, achieving real growth for ambitious companies and to become the first choice for F&A outsourcing for accountancy practices and businesses alike for more info visit our site Azure Global and join us On Facebbok