A TAMWORTH firm of chartered accountants has launched the UK's first mobile phone application providing instant access to the latest tax rates.

The Haines Watts application is free to download and lists a large proportion of UK tax rates including income tax, corporation tax, VAT and National Insurance.

Partner at the firm, Steve Haines, said: "Time is money – and anything that streamlines accountancy and makes things faster and more efficient is worth embracing.

"Rather than having to use the internet via a PC to find out relevant tax rates or keep a hard copy tax card to hand, the app will allow access to tax rates anywhere, at any point in time.

"There's huge demand for our tax rates cards, but there's both a financial cost and an environmental cost in generating reams of printed versions – so we turned it into an app.

"The app will initially be available for use on iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad.

"To our knowledge, no other UK accountancy firm has offered such an app. At Haines Watts we make sure we give business owners what they want, when they want it – technology is the ideal way to do this."

The move came as a result of the company looking at how it can better serve business owners and finance directors by making key information more accessible on a day to day basis.

Samantha Davies, marketing manager of Haines Watts, added: "Our partners, who are also business owners, rely on their phones now to access information 24/7 as a matter of course; we know that other business owners would be doing the same.

"Time is at a premium for business owners and FDs and this is just a small step in the process of driving efficient and massively more convenient accountancy services."

The company plans to track downloads of the app in the coming months with a view to moving onto further platforms and developing new apps in the future.