There’s  a perverse consequence of the new rules on beneficial ownership of companies announced today.  Because the government has not adopted my recommendation that all UK banks should be required to supply information on the beneficial ownership of the companies to whom they provide banking services  but the government has, at the same time, signed
Read the Rest…

I have already written today on the subject of the government’s proposals to create a register of the beneficial ownership of companies, something I have long campaigned for. It would, if done properly, beat con men who trade without sufficient resources, crime laundered through UK companies and a great deal of tax evasion. What I
Read the Rest…

The government has announced today that: Measures to improve the transparency of who really owns and controls UK companies have been announced by Business Secretary Vince Cable today. Ministers have confirmed that the Government is to proceed with an open, publicly available beneficial ownership register – a G8 commitment announced by the Prime Minister in
Read the Rest…

As many will know I have been campaigning for country-by-country reporting of accounting and tax data by multinational companies for overcast decade. As a result of that work, and campaigning by many others, this issue reached the international taxvagendalast year, and then the fight back began. At the OECD those multinational businesses – whose trading
Read the Rest…

I have been asked to comment on James Galbraith’s review of Thomas Piketty’s book, Capital in the twenty first century, because Galbraith is critical of both the ideas and policy recommendations made in the book unlike, for example, Paul Krugman, who is broadly in agreement with Piketty’s thinking. Now I should stress I have still
Read the Rest…

I am intrigued by reaction amongst the tax profession to what I wrote about Starbucks yesterday. You won’t be surprised to know that those who have commented have said what I wrote was wrong. That always seems to be the case, so there was nothing new there. For the record, the error it was claimed
Read the Rest…

The headline employment data today looks good. 239,000 new jobs. However, self-employment accounted for 146,000 of the increase. But as I have shown, firstly no one really knows how many self employed people there are and secondly, they earned an average of £10,400 each in 2011-12, on a steadily falling trend. These people will be
Read the Rest…

As some will know, I have been advocating the use of local government bonds to fund local Green New Deals for as long as I have been involved with tax justice campaigning. It was good therefore to note a new post on the Climate Bonds web site that reports that the French region of Ile
Read the Rest…

According to Reuters: Starbucks Corp said it decided to move its European headquarters to the United Kingdom from the Netherlands following criticism over its low tax payments in Britain last year, The Times reported. The world’s largest coffee chain said the relocation was primarily to get closer to Britain, its biggest and fastest-growing market in Europe,
Read the Rest…