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One Direction paid 1,900 times more tax than Facebook. Yes, One Direction paid almost 1,900 times more UK tax than Facebook did last year. The five original members, including Zayn Malik who left the band in March, handed the taxman £8.24m from their company 1D Media, after recording a pre-tax profit of £45.4m. Facebook paid just £4,327 in 2014 - which led to criticism from politicians. The social media giant reported a loss of £28.5m after paying British staff £35m in bonuses. At the time, Facebook said: "We are compliant with UK tax law, and, in fact, in all countries where we have operations and offices," adding that British employees paid UK income tax on their salaries.

Including duties paid overseas, One Direction's tax bill was £10.5m, leaving a take-home profit of £34.9m - a huge improvement on 2013 when the band paid £1.1m in tax and took home £3.7m. The remaining members, Niall Horan, Liam Payne, Harry Styles and Louis Tomlinson, are set to take a break in March to pursue solo projects. Wage levels: Would I earn more in another city ? - Business - News. It doesn't take a study to confirm that a work-life balance is harder to strike in London than elsewhere. But now there is proof. The capital is the sixth most expensive city in the world in which to live and work, but its workers are not in the top 10 global earners.Londoners are only the 13 highest earners according to a survey by Swiss bank UBS.

While it is cheaper to live in Sydney, Copenhagen and Chicago, all three cities offer workers better wages. The best deal is in Switzerland. Workers in the Zurich and Geneva earn the highest gross wages, while Luxembourg comes third. In Nairobi, Jakarta and Kiev, the lowest-ranked cities, workers receive only around 5 per cent of average gross earnings in Zurich.

The study, published every three years since 1971, compiles more than 68,000 data sets to produce a glimpse of the world in 2015. Cities are ranked from a low of 6.3 (Kiev) to an off the charts high of 141. 13. The British capital of London is the third most expensive city in the world. Chuggers are bad for charity in the long run | Voices | The Independent. I have a face that I reserve for clipboard-wielding strangers on the street who bound towards me like puppies. By staring expressionlessly into the middle distance and shaking my head, maintaining my stride, I hope to convey the message that I know they have a job to do but, should they attempt to talk to me, a plague of locusts will rain down on their heads and their houses will be reduced to a heap of ashes. It usually does the trick. There’s not much love for charity muggers, or “chuggers”, the infuriatingly chirpy fundraisers who patrol city centres in the hope of extracting our debit-card details.

For me, there is little more vexing than being accosted by a grinning pillock wanting to chew my ear off about rainforests just when I’m looking to blow a load of cash on some overpriced tat. It’s not personal. Councils have already started to clamp down on chuggers; so far 100 have signed agreements to limit fundraisers to specific days and shopping areas. Zara owner Inditex sees profits helped by Spanish recovery. Screen-reader users, click here to turn off Google Instant. MoreEven more from Google Sign in Web News Videos Images Shopping MoreSearch tools Maps Books Flights Apps Any country Any time All results Search near… 4 results Cookies help us deliver our services. Learn more Got it Search Results In order to show you the most relevant results, we have omitted some entries very similar to the 4 already displayed.If you like, you can repeat the search with the omitted results included.

Unknown - Use precise location - Learn more. Germany's economy will grow faster because of the million refugees it is help... Germany’s economy will get a significant growth boost over the next few years because of the hundreds of thousands of refugees it is taking in, according to an economic analysis published today. The research, released by Oxford Economics, suggests that an influx of a million people over the next three years would raise the country’s GDP by 0.6 per cent by 2020. The economists said that as well as increasing economic growth, the influx of people could also reduce inflationary pressures – which would give the government more room for economic stimulus. “The increase in the number of refugees moving to Europe and other parts of the world is primarily a humanitarian issue, but it will also have economic ramifications for destination countries and, within the Eurozone, Germany in particular,” the researchers said.

The German Chancellor, Angela Merkel 0.6 per cent GDP growth is roughly equivalent to a quarter's decent economic growth in recent years. Refugees march from Hungary to Austria. Angry Students Are Boycotting Tesco After Minimum Delivery Spend Raised To £40. Robots Could Take 35 Per Cent Of UK Jobs In The Next 20 Years Says New Study. Robots taking jobs might seem like something out of science fiction but a number of key studies have revealed that nearly half of all US jobs could be at risk of being automated in the next 20 years. The dystopian film 'Elysium' shows a world where automation has become commonplace That massive figure reportedly drops for the UK down to 35 per cent according to a number of studies by Deloitte and Oxford University.

As part of its Artificial Intelligence coverage, the BBC has combined the two studies to create a picture of what the job market would look like in the future, highlighting which jobs would be at risk. Oxford Academics Carl Benedikt Frey and Michael A. Osborne's paper utilised a method which analysed each job in the US based on nine key skills required: Robots Taking 35% Of UK Jobs: 8 Roles Artificial Intelligence May Replace Social perceptivenessNegotiationPersuasionAssisting and caring for othersOriginalityFine artsFinger dexterityManual dexterity So what's the solution?

The bitter story behind the UK's national drink - BBC News. Several of Britain's biggest tea brands, including PG Tips, Tetleys and Twinings, have said they will work to improve the tea estates they buy from in India after a BBC investigation found dangerous and degrading living and working conditions. Harrods has stopped selling some tea products in response, and Rainforest Alliance, the ethical certification organisation, has conceded the investigation has revealed flaws in its audit process.

The joint investigation by Radio 4's File on Four and BBC News in Assam, north-east India, found workers living in broken houses with terrible sanitation. Many families have no toilets and say they have no choice but to defecate amongst the tea bushes. Living and working conditions are so bad, and wages so low, that tea workers and their families are left malnourished and vulnerable to fatal illnesses. There was also a disregard for health and safety, with workers spraying chemicals without protection, and on some estates, child labour being used.

Concern. The old and new of Corbynomics - BBC News. Explicit cookie consent. People Are Really Angry At Virgin Train's 'Sneaky' New Railcard Change - Which Will Cost Commuters Thousands. Young people are fuming about the "sneaky" changes to Virgin Trains' off-peak fares, which will see the cost of a return to London from cities such as Birmingham and Manchester rise astronomically. The young person's 16 to 25 railcard can currently be used at peak times on Virgin Trains, but will now be banned. Instead, commuters, many of whom are young people who cannot afford to live in London or who are interning in the capital, face paying £217.15 for a Euston-Manchester return, rather than £53.85. Georgia May, a 22-year-old who commutes daily from Rugby to London, has launched a petition urging Virgin to rethink its new policy. "My daily commute is £27 return a day, however, this is trebling in price to £86," she told HuffPost UK.

"More than my daily wage. I commute as I cannot afford to rent in London. " May added: "I want Virgin to be held accountable to their actions and reverse this decision. " Sir Richard Branson at the launch of the Virgin trains "Arrive awesome" 2014 campaign. Supermarket Food Prices Rising Faster Than Thought, With Spaghetti Up By Nearly 20% In A Year. The cost of basic food and drink in supermarkets may be rising a lot faster than previously thought, with some rising by nearly a fifth in just a year. A cross-section of everyday items, including tea bags, bananas, potatoes and milk, went up in price by an average of 8% over the past year, according to new figures piloted by the Office for National Statistics (ONS). Other goods were found to have risen even faster in price, with a kilogram of cheddar cheese going up by 15% and a 500g packet of dry spaghetti or pasta by 19%.

The figures cover the period June 2014 to June 2015, and have been released as part of an ongoing project by the ONS to find new ways of monitoring the cost of items in the "basket of goods" - the list of products used to calculate inflation. SEE ALSO: Rogue Landlords Exploiting Housing Crisis, Causing 'Misery' For TenantsThe Average Pint Could Be Ridiculously Expensive By 2040 The new data has been compiled using a process called "web scraping". James A. Asos shares tumble after co-founder Nick Robertson quits | Business. Asos shares fell by more than 5% after Nick Robertson, co-founder of the online fashion retailer, stepped down as chief executive after a rocky 18 months for the former stock market favourite. Asos has replaced Robertson, who will remain on the board as a non-executive director, with Nick Beighton, the group’s chief operating officer, the company said, confirming reports on Tuesday night. Beighton, who is thought to have been groomed for the role since early last year, has taken over running the company with immediate effect.

Robertson’s resignation comes after a troubled period for the business he launched 15 years ago. Its problems have included a series of profit warnings, a fire at its warehouse and poor international sales caused by the strength of sterling. The move also follows Robertson raising £20m by selling shares in the retailer in January, although his remaining stake of just under 10% of the company is still worth about £210m. Revealed: the widening gulf between salaries and house prices | UK news. The gap between income and house prices has sky-rocketed so much in the last 20 years that even in the most affordable regions of England and Wales buyers are forced to spend six times their income, a new data analysis reveals. The situation is most dire in the capital, where the median house now costs 12 times the median London income. The Guardian analysed 19 million sales over 20 years from Land Registry and HMRC data. It shows how in every region in England and Wales there have been dramatic increases in house prices in proportion to incomes, fuelling concerns that millions will be locked out of the UK property market.

A homebuyer earning the median salary for their region in 1995 would have had to spend between 3.2 times and 4.4 times their salary on a house, depending on where they lived. In 1995, the median income in London was £19,000 and the median house price was £83,000, meaning that people were spending 4.4 times their income on buying a property. India's economic growth slows to 7% - BBC News. India's economy grew at an annual rate of 7% between April and June, official figures have shown.

This is slower than the 7.5% growth recorded for the previous quarter, and lower than expected. India and China - which also posted 7% growth in the second quarter - are now the joint fastest growing major economies in the world. But some economists have expressed concerns that India's official figures do not accurately reflect true growth. "At face value, today's GDP figures for [the second quarter] suggest that India matched China as the world's fastest-growing major economy last quarter," said Shilan Shah at Capital Economics.

"But the GDP data remain inconsistent with numerous other indicators which suggest that, at best, the economy is in the early stages of recovery after three years of tepid growth. "The official GDP data are overstating the strength of the economy, most probably by a significant margin. " Analysis: Simon Atkinson, editor, India Business Report, Mumbai. Karl Lagerfeld takes on the Greek debt crisis with satirical cartoon – stylewatch | Fashion. China’s stock market tumble is taking luxury fashion stocks with it. Quartz has chosen 30 innovators in Africa for their creative approaches to local problems in business, politics, culture and health and more. They will be honored on Monday (Sep. 14) at the Quartz Africa Innovators summit. Yinka Adegoke, Quartz Africa editor, says: The narrative in Africa has moved from seeking foreign-solutions-for-African-problems, to discussing African-solutions-to-African-problems. And, as our coverage (and the efforts many of these innovators) shows, it’s now moving toward a narrative of African-solutions-to-global-problems…Africa’s future is as promising and rewarding as we often hear, but not just because of oft-cited factors like abundant natural mineral resources and increasing political stability.

The countries of the continent have great promise because of their people. Here are 30 of the people who are helping the continent take major strides forward. Read more about Abass here, here and here. Read more about Adeyemi here, here and here. Dr. Eight reasons why China’s currency crisis matters to us all. After China unexpectedly devalued its currency last week, one City economist shrugged despairingly and said: “It’s August.” While it’s meant to be a time for heading for the beach or kicking back in the sunshine with the kids, August has often witnessed the first cracks that presaged what later became profound shifts in the tectonic plates of the global economy — from the Russian debt default in 1998, to what Northern Rock boss Adam Applegarth called “the day the world changed,” when the first ripples of the credit crunch were felt in 2007; to August 2011, when ratings agency Standard and Poor’s sent shockwaves through financial markets by stripping America of its triple-AAA credit rating.

Taking the long view, last week’s devaluation by China, which left the yuan about 3% weaker against the dollar, was relatively modest — sterling had lost 16% of its value in 1967 when Harold Wilson sought to reassure the British public about the “pound in your pocket”. 1. It could be serious 2. 3. 4. A 400% rent hike is forcing london's fashion designers out of their studios. The Trampery's fashion incubator in London Fields is currently home to some of London's most vital designers, including James Long, Lou Dalton and Jonathan Saunders. After a year of negotiations with the landlord, rents were expected to go up this September from £125,000 ($195,000) to £230,000, ($360,000) but the landlord has just announced that the rent will in fact be increased by an enormous 400% to £500,000 ($781,000.) This blood-chilling rent rise has forced the Trampery's fashion incubator, as well as bike-shop-cum-coffee-house Look Mum, No Hands!

, to close. With designers set to be booted out of their studios just weeks before showing their collections at London Fashion Week, the Trampery's fashion incubator is appealing to the retail industry to find alternative accommodation. "It is essential to us that The Trampery be found a new home," says British Fashion Council CEO Caroline Rush. Find out how you can help here #savetramperyfashion Credits. Rail Fares 'Rise Three Times Faster Than Wages', Trade Unions Call For Renationalisation Of Services. High street stores suffer worst summer for six years | Business.