While working alone can be very rewarding, The Business Lounge knows that you can miss out on idle chat with colleagues about interesting items in the news, and we want to plug that gap. Read on for some valuable time out.

Mathematics needs to be taken from “geek to chic”

It’s come as no real shock to The Business Lounge that apparently it’s not only acceptable, but now fashionable, to be bad at maths. Think-tank Reform have released a new report on “The Value of Mathematics”, which looks at the decline of mathematic skills in the UK and the impact on the economy.

As you might expect for a report about maths, we are treated to some numbers. For example, those without A-level maths can expect to earn less than those who do by up to £136,000 in a lifetime, so falling numbers of mathematicians has amounted to a £9 billion loss to the UK economy since 1990. The Financial Services sector in particular is having to look overseas to recruit enough suitable employees.

Read the full report at www.reform.co.uk, and try out the exam questions in the appendix dating back as far as 1951 – that will keep you busy.

Does evading tax cost lives?

Registered Charity, Christian Aid, has made the bold claim that “Tax evasion costs the lives of 1,000 children a day”. Their report “Death and Taxes: the true toll of tax dodging” initially refers to the effects on the developing world of tax evasion – the illegal actions taken to defraud tax systems, such as false accounting, failure to declare income, claiming false expenses etc. The claim is made that this costs the developing world US $160 billion, which if used for aid would saves the lives of 350,000 children a year.

Disturbing news definitely, but legal and tax advisers may be made more uncomfortable by the further claim that legal tax avoidance makes the position even worse. Tax avoidance – the legal arrangement of financial affairs to reduce an individual’s or company’s tax – can include the standard use of allowances and reliefs by many. However, there is also an industry working on complicated schemes which exploit tax loopholes, and which large corporations use to reduce their tax, in a legal manner.

There are obvious arguments that such industry helps economies, albeit perhaps in the developed world, and may help generate the wealth of the next generation of philanthropists but the report does provoke interesting debate.

Read it in full at www.christianaid.org.uk

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