Sending information by email is never really secure, even over an HTTPS connection. Not all email providers offer an encrypted way to send messages.
Unless the files themselves are encrypted, such as by using a password-protected PDF, there is no guarantee that the intended recipient will be the only one to see the message.
How you feel on any given day can be caused and influenced by so many different factors. Work is often one of the most significant of those factors. Stress is often a part of the job, and in small amounts, stress can even be a positive thing. High amounts of stress over a long period of time, however, can be very damaging to your mental and physical health, as well as your overall wellbeing.
VinciWorks has released a new mental health course, Mental Health: Wellbeing at Work. This course is designed to give users an understanding of some of the causes of stress at work, what can happen when it’s not dealt with, and how employees and employers can help reduce unnecessary stress and improve wellbeing at work.
Work-related stress and mental health problems often go together, and the symptoms can be very similar.
Work-related stress can aggravate an existing mental health problem, making it more difficult to control. If work-related stress reaches a point where it has triggered an existing mental health problem, it becomes hard to separate one from the other.
Under health and safety at work legislation, employers have a duty of care to their staff. This duty of care encompasses having staff take a stress and mental health risk assessment and then acting on it. This means they should take all steps which are reasonably possible to ensure their health, safety, and wellbeing. Legally, employers must abide by the relevant health and safety and employment law, as well as their common law duty of care.
Many businesses want to do training on mental health, to make it part of the induction process or roll it out to tens of thousands of employees in multiple sites. But the problem is that the vast majority of mental health training solutions require onsite, day-long, classroom-based external sessions—a significant time and cost investment that often only the largest or most progressive companies can afford.
The growth of mental health first aiders has of course greatly expanded the numbers of workers who have contact with a trained professional, but this still does not solve the problem of how to get everyone in a company to understand the key issues and aspects of mental health.
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One of the most important aspects of DAC6 compliance is making sure intermediaries report transactions within the reporting deadline. Having consulted with over 50 leading international firms and HMRC, we have updated the DAC6 portal dashboard to make it easier for administrators to stay on top of deadlines. Our customisable dashboard will allow firms to easily track when a deadline is approaching, see what’s overdue and review what has been reported.
Failure to submit a report can result in a fine from HMRC. The dashboard gives a clear, customisable visual overview of the upcoming deadlines and overdue reportable transactions.
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Under DAC6, special entities, known as intermediaries, must log certain cross-border transactions that may have a tax implication and where necessary report these to local tax authorities. They should therefore start registering and keeping track of all cross-border transactions. VinciWorks has consulted with 50 leading international firms, as well as HMRC, to build a best-practice DAC6 reporting solution. The portal allows intermediaries to record all cross-border transactions while guiding them on which transactions require reporting.
When it comes to DAC6 reporting, how do you make sure matters are not falling through the cracks? At matter intake, partners are unlikely to have all the details of the transaction and there needs to be a way to trigger the DAC6 review at a later time. To solve the problem, we have added a new feature that allows administrators to build flexible reminders that will trigger emails to the relevant parties when a submission needs to be reviewed or has an upcoming reporting deadline.
Continue readingTo help businesses keep track of updates in UK legislation and policies, VinciWorks regularly publishes a short regulatory update. Since our last update in January, the UK left the EU, with certain legislation coming into effect. This includes the GDPR we have become familiar with disappearing from the statute book and the Data Protection, Privacy and Electronic Communications (Amendments etc) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019 coming into effect.
This regulatory agenda is designed to provide an overview of regulatory changes or new regulations recently passed, proposed, or on the agenda which are relevant to key compliance areas of VinciWorks’ clients in the UK. It includes legislative and government action on data protection, whistleblowing, modern slavery, DAC6, tax evasion, legal services, IR35 and more.
This edition of the regulatory agenda will cover the following:
Around one in four adults in the UK experience mental health issues. These problems can often be exacerbated by work. The problem is that the vast majority of mental health training solutions require onsite, day-long, classroom-based external sessions that require a significant time and cost investment. Only the largest or most progressive companies can afford this form of training.
Convincing leadership to include company-wide mental health training in their budget and that effective training doesn’t need to come at a huge cost has proven to be a real challenge. VinciWorks has created a short guide to help present a business case for mental health training and get board buy-in.
The guide covers:
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Following engagement with relevant parties for over a year, together with a written consultation document and review period, HMRC laid their DAC6 Regulations before Parliament on 13 January 2020 under the International Tax Enforcement (Disclosable Arrangements) Regulations 2020, Statutory Instrument 2020 No. 25. However, trawling the Directive, the consultation paper and draft guidance to find that one piece of information you need is proving to be a real challenge.
We have summarised all of HMRC’s guidance into an easy-to-read guide answering many of the questions we’ve received from firms.
Here are some of the areas of DAC6 compliance the guide covers:
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On Wednesday 29 January, over 50 leading international firms joined us for our third DAC6 core group meeting. During the meeting, our panel, which included HMRC’s Policy Lead for DAC6, took questions from our 100-strong audience to try to make sense of the Directive and fill in some missing details. Here is a summary of the discussions with HMRC:
Brexit will not have any immediate effect on the UK’s implementation of DAC6. The Directive will continue to apply in full at least for the duration of the transition period or until a deal is reached.
All intermediaries have a reporting obligation. The primary interest of HMRC is to receive the correct information about transactions so that they can assess whether a transaction needs further review. While the Directive mandates reporting deadlines, reports should include as much relevant information as possible.