Another tax rise, it won’t go away if oil prices fall, it will last until 2028, the sky is falling, the oil and gas business has suffered yet another blow, it’s finished, our day in the sun has gone. Or maybe not. 

It’s been a while since we’ve had a new IPO of a large oil and gas company in the UK, so Ithaca Energy (ITH) caught my attention, especially as it is a company that I had followed previously when it was listed.

Whilst I’m generally wary of investing in small oil and gas companies, occasionally one comes along that appears to be in the right place, at the right time, and with the right assets and management team.

I haven't posted much these last few days - I've been abroad for the first time since January 2020. What excitement!  I'm sure a bunch of you have been to Gibraltar, though I had not.  I have two key tips.  If, unlike me, you are visiting to explore lower taxation and other matters, do not discuss it in front of others having their breakfast.  Second, you must ask yourself whether to fly with British Airways i.e. IAG (IAG) or EasyJet (EZJ). And - if you should prefer the former - whether or not you should hold EasyJet shares.

The new ‘windfall’ tax on UK oil and gas producers has been all over the news this week, and whilst many of the public seem to be celebrating the fact that these ‘evil’ companies and their investors are going to take a hit, I’m not so sure the new rules are quite so great.

Fear not: no waffle; this is not bad.  I start with Rishi Sunak, his Mrs, and tax non-payment. Then, I look at: Canadian Overseas Petroleum (COPL), caught telling another monster porky today; Vast Resources (VAST); Omega Diagnostics (ODX); Victoria Plumbing (VIP); Arden Partners (ARDN); Ince (INCE); and a new uber dog on the Standard List – Ajax Resources (AJAX), another overvalued example of crony capitalism.

Gold ended the week at $1922 – down from last week’s $1991 as the assault on the record high petered out. The Fed raised interest rates, the Bank of England hiked rates again, the Ukraine war continued with more horrific attacks and inflation was still there rearing its ugly head.

Capricorn Energy (CNE) has seen its share price weaken since it announced a tender offer as opposed to a special dividend, which many investors had been expecting, but remains one to hold.

It is your money that is being pissed away by the State and with the tax burden at record highs the Taxpayers’ Alliance served up two examples of rank hypocrisy and incompetence that will leave you fuming.  First up is the greed and hypocrisy of TUC leaders and, yes you are paying to support this rotten system for these days most Union bosses represent workers in the public sector.  Next up is the shocking amount local councils have recklessly speculated on commercial property as they “knew better” than Mr. Market as prices tumbled. Of course they did.

In their 2019 manifesto, the Tories said they would not hike Income Tax or National Insurance. Today we learn that an NI hike of 1-1.25% is planned to help shorten NHS waiting lists and to pay for care for the elderly. So the Tories lied. But it is worse than that. What is proposed is manifestly unjust, it is the transfer of wealth from those without to those with it.

Gold ended the week at $1817, up from $1781 last week. The big news was the chairman of the Federal Reserve, Jerome Powell’s speech to the virtual Jackson Hole shindig and whilst there had been some talk of a spot of hawkishness and an imminent taper on the masses of magic money being spewed out by the Fed, what we actually got was that the Fed’s view was that it could be appropriate to trim in this year. Which, of course, means it also could not be! The result was that Gold headed north and gold stocks followed suit.

A few weeks ago I wrote a piece here about Cairn Energy (CNE) shares being too cheap, both in terms of its producing assets and also on the basis of any resolution of its long term battle with the Indian government. Quite a bit has happened since then.

Always spotless, green and neat, The smoothest woke spin gets them. I misquote, of course. But I am sure that the lead singer of the Undertones, who produced the classic My perfect cousin, now that we have a CD machine here, often playing this year at the Greek Hovel, will not object. These days Feargal spends his time campaigning on river quality. What else would an ageing punk do? The tweet below demonstrates the hypocrisy of big finance on ESG matters.

Gold edged higher again this week to $1788 from $1782 a week ago. It is not much of a move, but following the beating in the wake of the Fed’s threat to raise interest rates in two years’ time that is now two positive weeks, which is good (for gold bulls). There are plenty of reasons for optimism that Gold will head a good deal higher a few months out, but I am keeping the faith that we will again see $2000 Gold by year-end and this is why.

Okay, tomorrow is the big day. If you are yet to donate please do so HERE as the Rogue Bloggers are now just over £2,000 off target. In today’s podcast, I discuss at length issues arising from the Skinbiotherapeutics (SBTX) and Optibiotix (OPTI) issue where Steve O’Hara says a man who took a company to the Isle of Man knows nothing about tax! Then onto the fraud Zoetic (ZOE), company specific issues and the wider one, raised by promoter David Lenigas today, of the increased risk caused by margin buying of small caps.

The photos will come later (not of underpants). The walk is done but I paid the penalty of ignoring Dan’s golden rule. We have now raised more than £14,000 and as you think of my pain today, will the 96% of bearcast listeners who have yet to donate please do so here. Otherwise I will talk about Dan’s underpants again. In the rest of the podcast, I take issue with ex soccer player Andrew Johnson on tax and then look in detail at the claims made by Versarien (VRS) about its graphene enhanced face nappies and why they do not stack up at two levels and, as such, why there really should be a UK product recall.

The Tories have been cutting taxes to help their rich pals while screwing the poor! I am sure I have heard that on the BBC about once a day for the past decade and it is what our schools and universities teach their kids. But oh no, the truth is very different. As Rishi Sunak prepares for more tax hikes in his budget, the Taxpayers Alliance has published new research showing what a Con the Tories have been while claiming to be a low tax party. It is shocking.

I start with Tesla (TSLA) and a mad broker target. I discuss why it is mad and look back to ARM in the year 2000. Then it is onto plans to allow companies to delay results even more. Mentioned en passant here are Pires Holdings (PIRI) and Inspirit (INSP). Finally I turn to the idea of allowing folks to delay filing tax returns and paying tax.

Back on 11 May 2020, it was announced that San Leon Energy (SLE) boss Oisin Fanning “had purchased” 98 million shares from Tosca Fund at 21p a pop on 7 May. The shares were cum dividend.

The economic low tide of Covid-19 has shown many businesses to be naked below the waist, with insufficient equity to protect their sensitive parts. It is a good moment to consider why so many firms run this risk, and if a change in government policy might be in order. I believe that it is.

In a just world Dev Clever (DEV) boss Chris Jeffries would be in jail for selling shares while sitting on undisclosed adverse financial news.  But while he still enjoys his liiberty he has announced the purchase of a crap company from some tax dodgers. Will he inform HMRC of the deal so ensuring the matter is dealt with?  he is clearly an honourable man....

Almost but not yet. Pro tem I look at the ethics and tax affairs of soon to float AirNb and then at this week's utterly dishonest journalism in the Sunday Times, Burford (BUR) and the issue of revenue recognition.

Yesterday, David Scott wrote ‘The Tax System Explained in Beer’,  a well-known parable about the tax system if it was 10 guys drinking in a pub. He missed the point.

Hello, Share Scrameroos. It's been another dire week for shares. Even though the Santa Rally should be gearing up. You'll be feeling pretty miserable about company values at the mo. But I have been gathering evidence that situation is nowhere near as bad as it's painted and that UK growth, the big driver of shares, is underestimated in the official figures. 

Oh dear, oh dear. After my old offshore based, tax averse, pal Jim Mellon saw guests speaking to a near deserted hall in 2018 you wondered what the next disaster from his Master Investor show would be. Well the old asset stripper has just published calendar 2017 accounts and they are the grimmest yet and come with a stark warning that the game may be almost up.

Hello, Share Crimpers. Unlike Uncle Tom whom I think uses the services of a famous bear's wife to finish his tax returns, I fill in my online form myself. But then I have a very simple professional life, earning a bit by my writing and turning in reasonable share profits. However, there's no doubt that working out tax liabilities is becoming even more difficult in these ever more complex days - especially for top businesses.

Often at the lower end of the oil and gas sector private investors get fixated with taking gambles on drills with large prospective resources and dream of untold riches if the company gets lucky with the drill bit, but the reality is that in the majority of cases this will result in a duster and substantial losses.

I have today written to the HMRC as it appears that Julie “Lingerie on expenses” Meyer MBE may owe it around £200,000 in unpaid tax. I say “may”, I hope – given the parlous state of the UK’s finances – that it checks this out to see if it indeed this is money owing. It is all to do with her apartment in London.

After her disastrous FTE2017 conference in Malta where large numbers of bills remain outstanding after only 17 tickets were sold, Julie Meyer has had to move location for FTE2018 and it is the poor Croats who she will be stiffing over this time.  In a desperate - and failing – attempt to get both paying sponsors and paying ticket holders ( 2,500 Euro – bargain!) Ms Lingerie on expenses unveiled some new high profile speakers notably the two below Anuj Gupta and Randi Zuckerberg. Uh oh…guess what….

And so at 9 AM GMT the court in Malta opened its third attempt to try Julie Meyer on criminal charges. And for a third time Julie Meyer failed to appear. What is the devout Christian afraid of? This court will reconvene on 20th June. But my sources tell me that there is more bad news from the Maltese Courts on the way for Ms lingerie on expenses MBE.

Oh dear, oh dear, another day and another set of documents arrives at Winnileaks. Yesterday we showed how devout Christian Julie "more lingerie on expenses" Meyer MBE was in deep merde with the US taxman, the IRS and had also committed a criminal offence in lying to the IRS by not declaring a source of income. Today we expose Ms Meyer's equally worrying problems with the British taxman. She may have a letter from the Queen and an MBE but she has been depriving Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs of money that is rightfully its. Naughty, naughty.

As we saw earlier Julie Meyer MBE appears to have forgotten to pay any tax on the Capital Gain she enjoyed when selling First Tuesday 18 years ago. Sadly for her the US tax authorities at the IRS have caught up with the devoutly christian tax avoider but are not demanding all their cash at once because it appears that poor Julie really is flat broke. Thanks to Winnileaks I bring you a filing Julie made to the IRS.

On Christmas Eve 2014 while many of us prepared for Midnight Mass and to celebrate the birth of the good Lord Jesus, devout Christian Julie Meyer MBE had other things to do - her second visit in four days to the Ann Summers sex shop. There is nothing wrong in this except that Julie then put the bill (£48) on her Ariadne Capital expenses insisting that the purchase was "on company business". Cripes I guess Ariadne did more than I had imagined. The Winnileaks service means I have three months of Julie's expenses which I publish below and which will shock all stakeholders and all readers at ever level.

What is it with small and mid caps on the London market and their inability to budget for tax bills? I start to wondser how many FD's out there received their training in such matters from the late Sir Ken Dodd or from Lester Piggott. Following on from the debacle at Conviviality (CVR) next up is Nature Group (NGR).

Hello, Share Moochers. The biggest cliche in the book is the markets hate uncertainty. And there’s oodles of uncertainty about the trade war that’s building between the USA and China. But aside from the clash of the Titans, how will the issue affect shareholders here in Blighty?

Hello, Share Walkers. Anyone not subscribing the measly £5.99 a month to reap all the trading advantages of this beautiful website is probably taking an unacceptable risk. Especially at this time of year, when you still have a chance to sell your losers to cut your capital gains bill.

I start with a look at whether some current assets are really current assets, taking my inspiration from my earlier analysis of Jim Mellon's flagship dog Regent Pacific. I explain why getting this right is so important in endeavouring proper company analysis. Then it is onto Friday's market sell off caused by what even ABC now admits was 100% fake news about Donald Trump. I look at the tax plans of POTUS which are inspirational and compare them with the rhetoric coming out of Jeremy Corbyn's Labour Party. I increasingly think Corbyn will win the next election and explain why that would be such a disaster. Tomorrow there may be no bearcast as I am travelling but I plan to do a double video share tip for paying subscribers only

I start with the latest offshore revelations from the Paradise Papers. Tune into BBC 1 tonight at 9 for more fun. I delight in Margaret Hodge the Labour MP being exposed as an A grade hypocrite on this matter and then point out how it is impossible to stop folks going offshore - the answer is not to deter them with punitive UK tax. I look at Concepta (CPT) - which we own - after today's statement, Purplebricks (PURP)  and shamed FinnCap's latest tech disaster Intercede (IGP) where its certainly placing ahoy. Then I cover the issues of ramping, de-ramping and stock promotion.

The fine office of Wikipedia informs me that: 'Ferguson is a Scottish surname and given name. The surname is a patronynic form of the personal name Fergus. The name Fergus is derived from the Proto-Celtic elements *wiros ("man") and *gustus ("vigour", "force", or "choice"). Well...you learn something new everyday. Additionally as of a few weeks ago it is the new name of the old Wolseley (WOS, now FERG), the FTSE-100 plumbing and heating kit stalwart.

Okay I have called the top before but the house price crash is underway. I explain why and it involves cutting off the supply of dodgy foreign buyers in London, changes in Buy to Let Tax and new costs for landlords, it involves external shocks and an over-borrowed British consumer. It is already underway and this crash will be brutal. I look at what to invest in and what to short. I do a short section on Purplebricks (PURP) which is one of THE top stocks to short in the UK.

Arron Banks is a big UKIP backer as is his pal Jim Mellon, although the old asset stripper of Uramin infamy is not actually allowed to vote in the UK as he lives offshore in the Isle of Man. Private Eye this week looks at how the two men have not exactly prospered by backing the underperforming, sub scale, IOM-based, AIM-listed, bank Manx Financial (MFX). It also questions whether Banks is as rich as he claims. Enjoy...

Hello Share Shufflers. There is a Geordie company which wages war on switches and buttons. It makes touch sensors. You’ll see this kind of technology everywhere these days, beginning with your mobile phone.

Is this the Tax Year in which you are going to sort your pension out? If we are correct and both Equity and Bond markets are in bubbles, which are set to burst, then a large amount of the wealth build up in a pension(s) could evaporate without the right Investment Strategy.

As I am on a train twixt Stacey Towers and the fantastic UK Investor Show at Westminster as I write, I don't have any specific research material to hand. But a few observations on how the new financial year may affect your bag might be useful.

Telit Communications (TCM) is still the number one most shorted share on AIM, even after releasing final results last Monday that were welcomed by the market and saw the shares soar 14.6% to their peak of 360p on the day.  But with 10.5% of the stock out on loan to the alleged “smartest guys in the City” you have to ask yourself “What exactly am I missing?”  So began my thought process as I sat down to dissect the accounts.  Here are some quick thoughts:

Hello Share Chuckers. While Uncle Tom has been plunged once again into another of the legal attacks he loves - and I urge you to read the latest fascinating news on that - I’ve been trying to find a publisher for my great novel.

Oh, perhaps I shall have another small slice of stilton and another glass of port said London's worst Nomad Roland "fatty" Cornish to himself, as he tried to bury the memories of his visit from the ghostly apparition who was even scruffier than Tom Winnifrith. Clearly not a scholar or a gentlemen he repeated to himself several times although whether this was a reference to the ghost or Winnifrith was unclear at this point. Fatty did not enjoy being haunted but, after just one more "small" slice of Stilton and a small port Fatty decided it was time for beddybyes and headed up stairs with his faithful, if flatulent, poodle Stuttard following on behind.

I thought last week's odd one out contest was a piece of cake but no-one got it right although one person was getting there. Okay: it is all about tax if you think about the four images below.

Even with all of the other craziness in the markets, the ridiculous share price rise in Mosman Oil and Gas (MSMN) still managed to stand out!

Alistair Osborne lashed out at Nomad Roland "Fatty" Cornish in the Times on Saturday listing his long list of AIM failures. A central point made is that Fatty banks huge fees for doing an IPO only to quit before the shit hits the fan or before the fat lady sings. In other words he earns megabucks and then scuttles off to hide in his favourite restaurant whilst others suffer the financial damage. Osborne starts his article on New World Oil & Gas (NEW).

No doubt our in house comments section loon Wildes will be, once again, reporting me to the FCA for this but the winner of this week's Roland "Fatty" Cornish, the worst Nomad in London, Caption Contest is the Deputy Sheriff of AIM. We asked for captions to the picture below:

Unfortunately with many AIM companies these days, news is hyped up so much that when it actually arrives it can rarely meet the expectations of investors.

Recently listed Papillon Holdings (PPHP) is - as Cynical Bear pointed out here - clearly an overvalued rum and coke. But in its brief existence it has at least achieved something: helping the FD slash his tax bill. Oh what jolly good news for the crony capitalists, coke and hookers all round.

The UK Investor speaker, Moneyweek columnist and gold guru and professional comedian Dominic Frisby sends me a flyer for his gigs at the Edinburgh Festival. Unlike some want to be writers, such as Ben Turney who are accidental comedians in that we just laugh at them, Dominic really is a professional comedian and is very funny so if you are in Edinburgh this year go see him. His main gig is Tax!

I’ve been fairly bearish on property in general for the past year or so, and whilst I was possibly a little premature in covering a couple of the larger estate agents as shorts, they have ultimately fallen since then.

Finally at the fifth attempt David Cameron says that he has come clean about the offshore Blairmore Trust set up by his late father and exposed in the Panama Papers. Or has he come clean?

It is the birthday of the Mrs tomorrow and so tonight we entertain 20 of her mad lefty friends and no prizes for guessing who is doing all the cooking. It is her birthday but to have to cook then be nice to her mad friends as well is surely a cruel and unusual punishment for me. In this podcast I discuss a raft of tax issues including the Corbett question. Then it is a preview of "how not to be a bulletin board moron"

Just before Christmas I thought Santa Claus had arrived early. There was a bulletin published by HMRC with updates on the rules that determine how the investment allowances on supplementary corporation tax would be calculated.

Libertarian Mark Littlewood of the IEA is a Question Time Regular and came along to Gold & Bears to give a compelling presentation on the mess we are all in. Debt is toxic and the answer is not more tax but less.

Hello Share Choosers. As I've been completing my tax form. I've been wondering why share fans like us get such a raw deal from all quarters.

Hello Share Stirrers. It's that awful tortuous time again. We suddenly realise we've done nothing about our tax returns. And now we have only three weeks to get the flipping thing sent off. (You have to do it on line now, as the time for paper returns – without a penalty, anyway - is past.)

In this podcast I explain why companies that engage in fraud are happy to pay tax from the reporting of bogus profits. It sounds insane but that is the way frauds operate. My hero Sam Antar of Crazy Eddies infamy explians it suoerbly on his website and I discuss both Sam and also Quenron and what is going on here. I also try to explain how tax losses are used and applicable and will not be there to save Quindell

Manager of promotional and retail merchandising space in shopping centres and other high footfall venues, SpaceandPeople plc (SAL) has announced results for the first half of 2014 “challenging period for the group, with trading in a number of areas being slower than had been anticipated". It now expects full-year “profit before tax and non-recurring costs of between £800k and £1.0million and profit before tax but after non-recurring costs, of between £500k and £700k”. Is this discounted in a share price, which has fallen from more than 150p earlier this year to a current sub 50p?