Did you know that bribes were once tax deductible as cost of doing business?

For those of us who have had an interest in corruption for much of our careers, there is little doubt that sometime in the late 1980s and early 1990s there was a shift in thinking within the development community about the role of corruption in the development process. The shift was tentative at first; continued reluctance to touch upon a subject that was seen to have a large political dimension coexisted for a while with increasing references to the importance of “good governance” in encouraging successful development.

What were the factors that contributed to this shift?

One that quickly comes to mind is linked to the falling of the Berlin Wall and the associated collapse of central planning as a supposedly viable alternative to the free market. It was obvious that it was not inappropriate monetary policies that led to the collapse of central planning but rather widespread institutional failings, including a lethal mix of authoritarianism (i.e., lack of accountability) and corruption.

The collapse of central planning in the late 1980s and the need for the international community to assist these countries in making a successful transition to democratic forms of governance and economies based on market principles made it glaringly clear that it would take far more to do so than “getting inflation right” or reducing the budget deficit. Literally overnight, the economics profession was forced to confront a much broader set of issues beyond conventional macroeconomic policy. Related to the demise of central planning, the end of the Cold War had clear cut implications for the willingness of the international community to turn a blind eye to glaring instances of corruption in places where ideological loyalties had led to episodes of collective blindness. By the late 1980s, for instance, Mobutu was cut off by the donor community, no longer willing to quietly reward him for his persistent loyalty to the West during the Cold War.

A second factor was growing frustration with the plight of people in Africa and other parts of the developing world. Gains in the global fight against poverty had begun to bear some fruit but these were largely concentrated in China, with Africa actually seeing further increases in the number of poor.

A third factor had to do with developments in the academic community. In particular, research on the importance of property rights, education and training, and institutions, including some empirical work which began to suggest that differences in institutions appeared to explain an important share of the growth differential between countries, and therefore have an influence upon countries’ growth performance. (For a nice survey see, for instance, Acemoglu et. al., “Institutions as the Fundamental Cause of Long-Run Growth”, in Handbook of Economic Growth, Elsevier, 2004).  For a growing number of economists corruption began to be seen as an economic issue and this led to a better understanding of the economic effects of corruption.

Also playing an important role was the intensification, beginning in the 1980s, of the pace of globalization. Globalization and its supporting technologies have clearly led to a remarkable increase in transparency and to people’s demand for openness and greater scrutiny. The multilateral organizations were not immune to these influences. How could one ignore or fail to see the stashing away of billions of dollars of ill-gotten wealth in secret bank accounts by the world’s worst autocrats, many of them long-standing clients of these organizations?

In parallel to these developments and further raising international public awareness of corruption, the 1990s witnessed a large number of scandals involving major political figures in some form of bribery or corruption.

In India and Pakistan the prime ministers were defeated largely because they were dogged by corruption charges. In South Korea two presidents were jailed following disclosures of bribery, while in Brazil and Venezuela bribery charges resulted in the presidents being impeached and removed from office. In Italy, Italian magistrates sent to jail a not insignificant number of the political class, who had ruled the country in the post-war period, and exposed the vast web of bribery that had bound together political parties and members of the business community.

There was less progress in Africa but, without question, corruption became harder to hide and the new technologies of communication proved a useful ally of increasing openness and transparency.

A related development pertains to changes in the global economy, which significantly boosted the perceived importance of productivity as a primary engine of prosperity. Globalization highlighted the importance of efficiency. Countries could not hope to maintain their presence in the global economy and compete in an increasingly complex marketplace, unless they used scarce resources effectively. And the prevalence of corruption definitely detracted from this. Furthermore, business leaders began to speak more forcefully about the need for a level-playing field and the costs associated with doing business in corruption-ridden environments.

In the 1990s the United States government made efforts to keep the issue of corruption alive in its discussion with OECD partners, further raising international awareness. The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act of 1977 had forbidden American businessmen and corporations from bribing foreign government officials, imposing stiff penalties, including prison terms, on those engaged in the paying of illegal bribes. Because other OECD countries were not subject to such restrictions—in fact, the payment of bribes continued to be tax deductible in most other OECD countries, as a cost of doing business abroad—American companies began to complain that they were losing business to OECD competitors. Academics sifting through the data showed that following passage of the Act, U.S. business activities abroad declined substantially, as the Act had actually helped to undermine the competitive position of American firms. These developments gave considerable impetus to U.S. government efforts to persuade other OECD members to ban bribery practices and in 1997 the OECD adopted the Anti-Bribery Convention, an important legal achievement.

Also contributing to this shift in attitude was the work of Transparency International (TI) and the publication, beginning in 1993, of its now well-known Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI). That corruption existed everywhere was a well-known fact. What TI showed was that some countries had been more successful than others in curtailing it. The work of TI helped greatly to focus public attention on the issue of corruption and contributed to legitimizing public discourse on issues of corruption and thus eased the transition by the multilateral organizations into doing the same.

Transparency International was soon assisted in its efforts by the international organizations themselves. At the IMF/World Bank meeting in 1996 the Bank president, James Wolfensohn, gave a speech in which he did not mince words, saying that there was a collective responsibility to deal with “the cancer of corruption.” More important, Mr. Wolfensohn gave strong backing to Bank staff efforts to develop a broad range of governance indicators, including those specifically capturing the extent of corruption. This was an extremely important development because it made it possible for the Bank, through the use of quantified indicators and data, to focus attention on issues of governance and corruption while at the same time not appearing to interfere in the political affairs of its members.

SUBMITTED BY AUGUSTO LOPEZ-CLAROS

New Samsung Galaxy S5 coming in April, possibly with eye scanner

Samsung is eyeing an April release date for its upcoming Galaxy S5, and speaking of eye, it’s currently testing iris recognition technology that could be featured in the new handset which would be on par with Apple’s new fingerprint scanner in the iPhone 5C and 5S.. The upcoming device is expected to have a new design and features to compete with Apple’s iPhone 5c and 5c smartphones.

Samsung also plans to change up the design of the Galaxy S5, mainly because consumers complained that the S4 resembled its predecessor — the Galaxy S3 — too closely.

The S5 will be paired with a new wearable device that will be an evolution of the Galaxy Gear smartwatch.

There’s also a chance Samsung will release a high-end and low-end version of the phone. The high-end model could have a metal casing while the low-end will still use plastic like all other Samsung’s phones

FG moves to legalise oil bunkering operations in Nigeria

The Federal Government has resolved to legalise oil bunkering activities in the oil and gas sector while targeting an annual N250million revenue from licensing, renewals and registration of vessels for the bunkering activities.

The aim is to revive the operations of bunkering businesses in the nation’s coastal waters which has been taken over illegally by most operators.

The Director, Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR), George Osahon, who spoke at a sensitisation forum in Lagos, on Wednesday, said operators of bunkering in the country would be licensed by the DPR from this month (January).

He said President Goodluck Jonathan approved the issuance of license to bunkerers as part of his economic agenda, adding that resuscitating bunkering business would create employment activities for Nigerians as well as act as stimulus for growth in other sectors of the economy, including inland ports and waterways.

According to him, “prior to 1979, there was not much records of bunkering activities recorded in the country. In 1979, however, it was introduced as a legitimate business with licences issued by the DPR. This was thwarted in 1984 apparently due to some abuse of the system.”

Osahon said his agency had prepared all guidelines to regulate the business of bunkering in accordance with the provision of the Petroleum Act

Osahon said his agency had prepared all guidelines to regulate the business of bunkering in accordance with the provision of the Petroleum Act 1969.

Among petroleum products recognised by the Act for bunkering activities included Automative Gas Oil (AGO) or diesel, Low Pour Fuel Oil (LPFO) and recently Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG).

http://tribune.com.ng/news2013/index.php/en/news/news-headlines/item/30433-fg-moves-to-legalise-oil-bunkering-operations.html[plulz_social_like width="350" send="false" font="arial" action="like" layout="standard" faces="false" ]

Cloud Accounting with Tally.erp9

GREAT NEWS FOR TALLY USERS

The world of Tally is changing. Take your part in Cloud Revolution.

Let the Tally Customers have great comfort with online capabilities of Tally.ERP 9.

Now you can centralize your Accounting Process with our RASPro Platform. You can Link up all your branches and business locations. You can Get up to the minute financial or stock positions. It can improve the performance and scalability of your Tally server. 1000 users can work at a time from anywhere in the world without any hassles.

100% Secure and maintenance free solution. Its ultimate security features give you more control to protect your financial data with 0% chance for manipulation or mishandling. The in-built continuous data protection feature handles disaster recovery management and business continuity management for your organization.Slow performance, Hanging while viewing reports, Out of memory, Data loss or corruption, Rewriting of data – These will become old memories to you.

With RASPro, now you can work peacefully with your most loved Tally with all new power to cater your needs like never before. The same features, the same flexibility, the same simplicity and the same ease of accounting of Tally with all new performance capabilities. 

Future_is_here   Benefits   RASPro   RASPro

[plulz_social_like width="350" send="false" font="arial" action="like" layout="standard" faces="false" ]

IFRS First time adoption – Phase 3: SME

IFRS 1 First-time Adoption of International Financial Reporting Standards sets out the procedures that an entity must follow when it adopts IFRSs for the first time as the basis for preparing its general purpose financial statements.

In order to achieve complete conversion, the Federal Reporting Council categorised reporting entities into three(3) phases and assigned deadline to them. As at the date of publishing this pose, Phase 1 and Phase 2 have been concluded. Phase three is expected to be concluded by December 31, 2014.

Phase 1: Publicly listed Entities and Significant Public Interest Entities (deadline is January 1, 2012 and the first IFRS based audited account shall be for the year ended 31 December, 2012)

Phase 2: Other Public Interest Entities (deadline is January 1, 2013 and the first IFRS based audited account shall be for the year ended 31 December, 2013)

Phase 3: Small and Medium-Sized Entities (SMEs)

IFRS for SMEs shall mandatorily be adopted as at January 1, 2014. This means that all Small and Medium-sized Entities in Nigeria will statutorily be required to issue IFRS based financial statements for the year ended December 31, 2014.

Entities that do not meet the IFRS for SME’s criteria shall report using Small and Medium-sized Entities Guidelines on Accounting (SMEGA) Level 3 issued by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) .

It helps to work with a team that’s been there before. We understand the practical issues around IFRS from both a Nigerian and global perspective. Our experienced team works with organizations to help them implement IFRS in a comprehensive way.

Please note that Phase 3 is further defined to mean companies whose audited accounts are mainly filed with the Corporate Affairs Commission and the Federal Inland Revenue Service only.

[plulz_social_like width="350" send="false" font="arial" action="like" layout="standard" faces="false" ]

 

FG Slashes Registration Of Business Cost By 50%

The federal government has reduced the cost of registering businesses by half, starting October 1, 2013, to encourage investments in the country.

Minister of industry, trade and investment Mr Olusegun Aganga, who made this known yesterday, explained that the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC) had reduced capital registration costs by 50 per cent for equity registrations of N500million or lower, and by 25 per cent for equity registrations from N500million and above.

The minister revealed this during the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between his ministry and the Ministry of Development, Industry and Foreign Trade of the Federal Republic of Brazil on the promotion of trade and investment, in Abuja.

The 19-man Brazilian delegation was led by the country’s deputy minister of development, industry and foreign trade, Mr Richardo Schaefer.

Aganga said the initiative was in line with the ministry’s investment climate reform programme aimed at strategically repositioning Nigeria as the preferred destination for both local and foreign investments.

“Following the directive from the president, the Corporate Affairs Commission has since October 1, 2013, slashed fees for business registration by 50 per cent. Under the new regulations, capital registration fees for companies (under Part A) have been reduced across board. While capital registrations below N1million will retain a flat fee of N10, 000; all registrations between N1 million and N500 million are reduced by 50 per cent; and all registrations above N500million are reduced by 25 per cent.

“By this action, Nigerian companies will now save well over N2bn per annum, which can be used to sustain their businesses, hire more staff, and expand operations. The new regulation has been deliberately set up to ensure the bulk of these savings go to smaller businesses, which need the lower fees more,” he said.

He added that the signing of the MOU with Brazil would make it possible for various agencies responsible for skills development, industry and development finance in both countries to work together to deliver better services for the citizens of their respective countries.

“The aim of the MOU is to strengthen the economic cooperation between the two countries at the bilateral and multilateral level; increase and promote the bilateral trade of strategic items of mutual interest, and support cooperation between institutions of both countries responsible for the promotion of trade and investment and official financing such as Banco Nacional do Desenvolimento Economico Social (BNDES) and the Bank of Industry (BOI).

Our Worry-Free Tax Services

You don’t need us to tell you that tax is not getting any simpler. Scarcely a day seems to go by without the announcement of some new practice, initiative, statutory instrument or case law decision. Keeping ahead of the game in tax is getting to be a full-time job. And when you add on what a practising professional needs to know in other areas of the profession, the task can seem daunting.

We have dedicated team who specialise exclusively in tax and we can help you in many ways in meeting your demands in the tax arena. We give independent expert advice on all direct tax matters affecting owner-managed businesses and their owners, ranging from a quick second opinion by phone through to implementation of an entire tax planning strategy or the management of a complex compliance, statutory filing and disclosure requirements. We can be as high- or as low-profile with our client as you wish: you may want to introduce us as a specialist external consultant or you may want us to remain invisible and for your tax administrator never to know that that amazingly clever tax-planning wheeze wasn’t entirely your own creation! It’s entirely up to you.

All our advice is competitively and transparently priced in advance.  .

Introduction information on Tally.ERP9 Accounting Software

About Our Tally.ERP9 Accounting Software Services

We are Partners of Tally Solutions Pvt Ltd (a Bangalore-based Enterprise Resourse Planning-ERP Software company that currently sells into more than 100 countries beyond its native India, including the United Kingdom, Bangladesh and the Middle East) More than a decade in close contact with Tally users/partners has made us aware of critical software applications & solutions that will complement Tally. These ingenious ‘Tally Enhancements’ & customized services are the answer to various perceptible requirements a Tally customer has lived with from the inception due to lack of the enhanced solution. Over these years we have been offering all kinds of Tally solutions to various customers as per their demands.

About Tally.ERP9

Tally.ERP9 is the world’s fastest and most powerful concurrent Multi-lingual business Accounting and Inventory Management software. Tally.ERP9, designed exclusively to meet the needs of small and medium businesses, is a fully integrated, affordable and highly reliable software.Tally.ERP9 is an off-the-shelf (ready-made) accounting solutions.

Tally.ERP9 is easy to buy, quick to install, and easy to learn and use. Tally.ERP9 is designed to automate and integrate all your business operations, such as sales, finance, purchasing, inventory, and manufacturing. With Tally.ERP9, accurate, up-to-date business information is literally at your fingertips anywhere. The powerful new features and blazing speed and power of Tally.ERP9 combine with enhanced MIS, Multi-lingual, Data Synchronization and Remote capabilities help you simplify all your business processes easily and cost effectively.

Tally Products

  • Tally.ERP9 Multi User (Gold)-Any number of computers with in the LAN
  • Tally.ERP9 Single User (Silver)-Only for single computer
  • Fixed Asset Register & Management (From 100 Assets to Unlimited)
  • Customised Tally Products
  • Tally LME- Access Control Security Feature (User Based)

Tally Services:

·         Tally installation and implementation
·         Tally Ongoing Support and Annual Maintenance Contract (AMC).
·         Training