5. Tax avoidance getting tougher

But while salary sacrifice is a tax avoidance strategy that's all above board, others aren't -- or fall into a grey area. And the bad news is that the grey area is set to get bigger in 2011. The coalition government has said that it will commit a further £900 million to tackle tax avoidance and tax evasion.

Rachel Murphy, a tax partner at the north-west accountancy firm Hurst, warns: "The risk is that the Treasury is increasingly merging the two premises of legitimate tax avoidance and illegal tax evasion, couching it in terms of what is 'acceptable' and 'unacceptable' avoidance."

6. Meeting the iXBRL deadline -- April Fool

And speaking of tax, another nasty looming by the end of the first quarter (31 March 2011) is the need to submit company tax to HMRC using iXBRL. All corporation tax filing after this date must use the inelegantly named eXtensible Business Reporting Language.