The Treasury Select Committee is to publish its interim findings on private equity tomorrow. This will not make recommendations: the committee has yet to hear all evidence, including that which I wrote for the Tax Justice Network.
But what is good news is that they are to ask for a progress report from the government on [...]
The Revenue have lost what has been called the Arctic Systems case in the House of Lords.
This case dealt with a husband and wife who co-own a company. They paid themselves very modest salaries and then split the remaining net income of the company (which was high in relation to salaries and also in relation [...]
Alistair Darling has denied the UK is a tax haven. On any objective basis he’s wrong. The UK is a tax haven. Over the next few weeks I will provide a lits of reasons why that is the case.
I guess it’s obvious to start with the domicile rule. There are two reasons. Other tax havens [...]
The FT has published a survey that show most people in the UK think:
1) Globalisation is having a negative effect;
2) Most people cannot fulfil their potential in this country;
3) Corporate salaries should be capped;
4) Free competition should not be an EU objective;
5) People want higher taxes on high salaries.
I don’t share (1). I do the [...]
I don’t want to exploit other’s misery. I’d hate to be flooded right now, and have not been. I’m grateful.
That said, I’m aware I may not always be that fortunate. In that case I think this problem, along with others that might arise from global warming, needs to be tackled. That requires cash. Lots of [...]
I note that the Alliance Boot private equity deal has run into problems. As the FT says:
The private equity owners of Alliance Boots and their banks have been forced to extend discussions on the debt package to fund the acquisition into next week after failing to reach agreement with investors.
The debt now looks set to [...]
Mike Warburton, a partner at Grant Thornton in the UK, wrote a piece for Accoutancy Age last week called “Non-doms are good for the UK”. It included not a shred of evidence that this is true. He said:
In recent years, London has become the financial capital of the world. This is partly due to over-reaction [...]
Dave Hartnett is the charismatic director general of HM Revenue & Customs. At an Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales event last week he said, according to Accountancy Age:
Tax administrators want advisers to take a deep breath and stop complaining. My colleagues feel oppressed by constant criticism
He added:
[E]very country involved in a recent [...]
Partly because there’s so much to be made from helping these people abuse the UK tax system. Which is why guides like this on how to do so are so readily available.
Which makes me delighted to note that HMRC are not accepting non-dom claims arising from the tax amnesty at face value. Indeed, the following [...]
Defining a tax haven is hard. The Chancellor of the Exchequer has sought to deny the UK is a haven, but offered no justification for his argument. The Tax Justice Network has issued a paper summarising attempts to date to define what a haven might be, which succeeds in showing how confusing this issue is. [...]
