Introduction to this week's issue by MALCOLM GUNN.
IF YOU ARE worried that your copy of Taxation this week has apparently got mixed up at the printers with Colour Painting Today or Designers World, let me set your mind at rest straight away. At Butterworths Tolley we decided that there was no real reason why your professional reading has to look like it is produced each week for the special benefit of Monty Python's famous accountant, aspiring to be a lion-tamer.
Introduction to this week's issue by MALCOLM GUNN.
IF YOU ARE worried that your copy of Taxation this week has apparently got mixed up at the printers with Colour Painting Today or Designers World, let me set your mind at rest straight away. At Butterworths Tolley we decided that there was no real reason why your professional reading has to look like it is produced each week for the special benefit of Monty Python's famous accountant, aspiring to be a lion-tamer.
When I joined Taxation, the rule was that I could have any colour so long as it was red, and there was no escape from the red which adorned every page. More recently, the cover at least has started to break out of this mould with some colour pictures, but the staple diet was still the black and white line drawings. It has been sad to commission the last drawings from the team of artists who have supplied them for so many years: Nick Shires, an art teacher at a school in Surrey; Andrew Mitchell (Mitch), trouble-shooter at Butterworths Tolley when our computer network misbehaves; cartoonists Doug Cleevely and Jake Kavanagh (the latter now editor of Motorboats Monthly); in former years, Christine Holliday, a Baptist minister's wife in Surrey with a talent for art and music; and more recently Howard McWilliam of Butterworths Tolley's Pensions World who has drawn the dashing colour cartoons for some front covers over the past six months. My very grateful thanks go to all of them for their skilful work.
This week's cover features a digital design, produced by our in-house designer, Phil George and it is planned that future issues will make further use of such computer produced images, or more traditional colour pictures and photographs.
Of course, no book is to be judged by its cover, and this issue of Taxation should quickly reassure readers that the technical coverage of issues of practical relevance to the tax practitioner is unrivalled in these columns. The articles by Kevin Slevin and David Hughes both examine aspects of what is still the most topical issue for owner-managed businesses - taper relief. Peter Harris discusses French succession law with particular relevance to the growing popularity of investment in French property this side of the Channel.
The Update pages of Taxation are also to have enhanced coverage. In the past, the aim has been that the magazine's news coverage should be the most comprehensive available in the professional marketplace. In future, coverage will be widened and will take in technical points to which attention is drawn in press releases issued by professional firms.
During my time in full-time practice at a professional firm, Taxation was top of my reading list and it was impossible to envisage professional life without my weekly copy. My goal since joining the magazine has been to continue the standards set by my predecessors so that no matter what the level of expertise of the reader may be, Taxation is the place to look for the latest on matters of interest to tax people. If your name is too far down the office circulation list for you to see your copy in good time, £195 is not a vast sum to fork out for your own subscription, given the wealth of tax advice which appears in these columns over a year. A subscription card is bound into this issue and, as an added bonus, it will give you personal access to the Taxation website and archive. However, the paper copy is, for once, ahead of the electronic version which continues to be any colour so long as it is red!
