I’ve long been critical of the ‘me too’ type of overnight budget commentaries. Indeed, these days ‘overnight’ is slow and many commentaries appear online within hours.
I have seen dozens of such identikit commentaries since the Chancellor sat down yesterday. Almost all contain pretty standard lists of the headline measures, cut and paste extracts from the budget press releases and sundry similar ‘commentaries’ containing the initial views of the author or a ‘senior tax partner’. There are a few that contain bog standard ‘advice’ and a few firms have provided commentaries on specific measures – although most of these note that we don’t have enough detail yet to know how the proposals will work in practice. Others reference what the writer would like to have seen or how limited the proposals are in specific situations.
If you really think it’s worth sending one out I’m an advocate of using a tailored version produced by one of the key tax publishers.
Of course there will be many more such commentaries that I haven’t seen. There’s a limit as to how many I can pick up through the email lists I am on and through links contained in tweets on twitter. Still, two very different budget commentaries stand out and deserve an award*
If you’ve come across any others that are clearly distinctive do please reference them in the comments section below and provide links if possible. Many thanks. I’m also keen to receive feedback challenging my view that the effort devoted to these overnight commentaries is a waste of time. By all means share your experiences of how and why you feel differently. Any evidence of the value would be great too.
Runner up – and with a special commendation for dividing up the announcements: Informanagement
- Budget Summary March 2011 – New tax changes announced today
- Budget Summary March 2011 – Future changes announced today
- Budget Summary March 2011 – Changes previously announced for 2011-12, now confirmed
And the winner is………
….Elaine Clark of Cheap Accounting for her blog post: Not A Budget Newsletter!
It won’t suit everyone but I love it!
* ‘Award’ in this context simply means to be acknowledged on this blog with an online link! ;-)
A great summary and my thoughts exactly.
I have in the past blogged, tweeted, mailed etc. and actually didn’t really listen to what was going on.
I am actually sending mine out on Monday with the intention of avoiding the rush. I feel that so many will go unread in an effort to send out straight away!
And Elaine’s is a worthy winner!