Infozone Breaking World News

HM Revenue & Customs has admitted that thousands of tax payment reminder letters were not sent out after it ran out of paper. The HMRC was due to send out millions of reminder letters to those who owed money by the end of July, but thousands of people still have not received their letters after officials didn’t order enough paper.

Officials have apologised for the mix-up and stated that people who did not receive their reminders will be given an extra 30 days without incurring any charges. A spokesman for the HM Revenue & Customs said; “Due to exceptionally high demand this year we are experiencing delays in sending paper self assessment tax statements to customers”.

He Added, “We very much regret any inconvenience and will send paper statements to everyone who should have one as soon as possible. People who pay late because of our error won’t have to pay interest”.

Royal Mail has revealed that its workers use 2 million rubber bands a day to bundle letters together. In the past 5 years, Royal Mail has spent an estimated £5 million on 4 billion red rubber bands prompting Keep Britain Tidy to call for a reduction because of the dangers to wild animals.

A spokesman from Keep Britain Tidy said, “We accept that dropping an elastic band is hardly the worst littering offence in the world, but none-the-less it is litter.” Adding that, “The bands look terrible strewn on the floor and pose a choking danger to pets and wildlife”.

A Royal Mail representative responded by saying, “Royal Mail regularly reminds postmen and women about the importance of avoiding litter,” and that, “The vast majority of rubber bands are re-used by our people in delivery offices and mail centres across the UK”.

The figures were released under the Freedom of Information Act and also states that the amount spent on rubber bands has increased by 40% over the past 5 years. The Royal Mail says that the rubber bands are a necessity and they only use biodegradable ones.

American clothes giant Gap has dumped their new logo after just one week following a barrage of comments online. The company’s Facebook page had more than 2000 negative comments about the new logo, with many commenters’ wanting a return to the old logo.

The old logo, which has been used for over 20 years is a simple blue box with ‘GAP’ written inside, whereas the new logo has ‘Gap’ written in black with a small blue square underneath the letter ‘p’.

A statement released on Gap’s website stated that the customer always comes first; it said, “We’ve been listening to and watching all of the comments this past week. We heard them say over and over again they are passionate about our blue box logo, and they want it back.

“So we’ve made the decision to do just that – we will bring it back across all channels.”

The statement went on to say, “There may be a time to evolve our logo, but if and when that time comes, we’ll handle it in a different way”.

A Freedom of Information report has announced that BBC staff has lost or had stolen £240,019 of laptops and mobile phones between April 2008 and March 2010. Over the two year period BBC staff reported 146 laptops, 65 mobile phones and 17 Blackberry’s lost or stolen.

The BBC said that they take any thefts seriously and computer security company Absolute Software warned staff to be more careful. David Everitt from the security firm said, “It is shocking that any organisation could lose so much equipment, but the BBC is just one of many we’ve seen recently, proving it’s all too common.” Adding that, “In this case, however, this technology is paid for by the licence payer and employees should be far more careful about how they handle it.”

The BBC aren’t the worst offenders though, as early last month a study by Lewis Communications stated that government departments had reported over £700,000 worth of technology lost or stolen over the same time period; this included 518 laptops, 104 mobile phones, 131 Blackberry’s and 932 electronic storage devices.

The Royal Bank of Scotland, which is 84% owned by the UK taxpayers has announced that its per-tax profits for the first six months of 2010 leap to £1.14 billion, compared to just £15 million for the first six months of 2009. It also reported an operating profit of nearly £1.6 billion compared to an operating loss of over £3.4 billion in 2009.

Since 2008 RBS has cut 23,000 jobs worldwide with 17,100 jobs cuts in the UK and earlier this week announced that it would be selling 318 of its branches to Santander.

RBS chief executive Stephen Hester said that the banks restructuring was on track by saying, “We are making good progress with disposals and overall business restructuring,” adding that the plan was “a marathon not a sprint”.

Marks and Spencer’s has said that its like-for-like sales rose by just 0.8% (not counting newly opened stores) during the three months to Boxing Day, well below the predicted 2% rise. While the company’s overall total like-for-like sales grew by 1.2% and food sales rose by 0.4%, share prices fell by 4.25% on the news.

Speaking to the BBC, M &S chairman Sir Stuart Rose said that the company had had a good Christmas, but 2010 would still be a tough year. He added: “2009 was all about getting through the recession” and that, “We have done pretty well in getting ourselves back into positive territory”.

These latest Marks and Spencer’s sales figures come after the John Lewis group posted record sales over the Christmas period. John Lewis reported a like-for-like sales rise of 12.7% for the five weeks up to the 2nd January and a total revenue of £500.8 million. Waitrose Supermarket, who is owned by John Lewis also posted a 20.8% sales rise from the previous year.

In a move that has surprised a few people, BT has announced that its BT Yahoo! web search will now be provided by Google. Although nothing will change for BT Broadband users, the co-branded Yahoo! and BT initiative which provides Yahoo services to BT users will now be powered by Google.

In a statement from BT it said, “We are delighted that we are continuing to work with Yahoo! through to 2011. As part of this new agreement BT Yahoo!’s web search will be provided by Google. We made this decision based on the fact Google is the most popular search engine in the UK. The combination of Google’s search engine with Yahoo!’s leading content and email services offers customers the ultimate broadband experience.”

Probably the most surprising part is that BT did not opt to use Bing, Microsoft’s new search engine, as Yahoo and Microsoft have just agreed a search ad deal in the US.

Meanwhile, Google will be pleased as they are now the largest search provider in the UK, having captured the majority of the big internet service providers.

Sales in UK shop have slowly risen for June by 1.2 %, this is a good rise after a sharp fall in May. This rise was a lot more than expect by economists who predicted a 0.3% rise.

UK shops have brought forward the summer sales in order to entice people to spend a little more a little sooner.

At the beginning of this week UK clothing retailer Next, claimed that the recent good weather had boosted its sales considerably.

This rise in UK sales is a positive sign that the UK might be over the worst of the economic storm.