2010 February » Tax Research UK

Bankers who say they’ll quit are talking bunkum

Banking Comments Off

Feb 212010

Fears of mass UK banking exodus prove unfounded | Business | guardian.co.uk .

Fears of a mass exodus by London’s financiers to the more favourable tax climate of Switzerland appear to have been exaggerated: fewer Britons applied for permits to work in the Swiss financial services sector last year than in 2008.

Research by Channel 4 News shows that, despite warnings by Boris Johnson, the mayor of London, that 9,000 high- flying City workers would decamp to escape the windfall levy on bonuses and the 50p income tax rate, just 1,079 British citizens joined the financial sector in the Alpine state last year – and about two-thirds of those were applying for IT or other back-office jobs. That represented a 7% decline on the number of Brits applying for a carte de s?©jour – work permit – in the financial services sector in 2008.

Hard evidence that all those threats from bankers, lawyers and accountants and their friends in the Conservative Party were pure bunkum.

Much like the products they well and their assertions on their worth to society I guess.

Why do we give these people band width, let alone afford them credibility?

Under pressure: tax inspectors turn up the heat on the rich

Accountancy, Ethics, Tax avoidance Comments Off

Feb 212010

Under pressure: tax inspectors turn up the heat on the rich | Business | The Observer .

The Observer relaunches its business section by highlighting the abuse of the tax profession.

This is a battle HMRC has to win – and it will get ugly before they do. Expect more accountants to spend time at Her Majesty’s pleasure – and it won’t be garden parties we’re talking about.

Until the profession rediscovers ethics it deserves to be treated like a pariah – because that’s the way too many of its members behave.

Time everyone paid their fair share of tax

Tax compliance Comments Off

Feb 212010

Time everyone paid their fair share of tax | Business | The Observer .

That’s the headline in the business columns of the Observer, relaunched today.

Ruth Sunderland says:

In praise of paying tax. Now there’s a controversial idea in a country like the UK that is in thrall to the tax avoidance industry, as we explore [today].

As she concludes

Paying tax has terrible PR. But it is actually a good thing to pay the right amount of tax. It is also a good thing when the economic substance of a taxpayer’s affairs reflects the picture they have painted to the Revenue and not some sham structure.

The contempt for taxpaying of the past few decades has gone hand in hand with greater inequality, strained public services and an unthinking faith in the market, ideas that are now discredited. As we head towards an election, it’s time for a new way of thinking.

Can’t think who she was talking to on Friday afternoon…

We’re seeking systemic change, not tokenism

Banking, Economics Comments Off

Feb 212010

FT.com / Companies / Banks – Stephen Hester to decline 2009 bonus.

Stephen Hester, chief executive of Royal Bank of Scotland, is to decline any bonus payment for 2009, as the pressure mounts on the loss-making state-owned bank to show humility amid the continuing populist backlash against bankers.

The man is on a salary of £1.2 million. His bank lost money. By the time he was 40 he had a 350 acre estate in Oxfordshire.

Let’s not applaud his tokenism. Let’s recognise it as just that and realise it is cover for the failure to deliver systemic reform.

And let’s remain candid: this bank should have always been nationalised outright. That was the only way to begin real reform of banking. As it is it remains one of the biggest dealers in foreign exchange – the socially useless activity that financial transaction taxes drive at. And we own 84% of it and allow it to carry on doing so.

The farce carries on. And no one seems willing to challenge it.

The reality of Jersey

Jersey Comments Off

Feb 212010

More homeless as recession hits ¬ª News ¬ª This Is Jersey.

The Jersey Evening Post reports:

THE true extent of Jersey’s homelessness problem has been revealed by a special JEP report.

A steep rise in the number of people using the Island’s homeless shelters – which are full to bursting point – is being blamed on the credit crunch, while Islanders are still regularly being found sleeping rough.

And many of the new admissions to the shelters are people the Shelter Trust has never met before.

This is the reality of tax havens: they create divided societies. The difference between them and other societies is that they do not do this by chance, they do it deliberately.

It’s the consequence of being secrecy jurisdictions – places that intentionally create regulation for the primary benefit and use of those not resident in their geographical domain. That regulation is designed to undermine the legislation or regulation of another jurisdiction. To facilitate its use secrecy jurisdictions also create a deliberate, legally backed veil of secrecy that ensures that those from outside the jurisdiction making use of its regulation cannot be identified to be doing so.

Campaigning seems to work

Isle of Man Comments Off

Feb 212010

FSC – Statistics Bulletin – Financial Supervision Commission.

Cash on deposit in the Isle of Man fell for the 4th quarter running to 31 December 2009.

Could that have something to do with the campaign saying “don’t bank on the Isle of Man“?

The 19 were also in the Sunday Times

Economics, Green New Deal Comments Off

Feb 212010

‚ÄòSlash and burn’ plan would cost us all dear -Times Online .

Same letter

Different audience

And then there were the 19…

Economics Comments Off

Feb 212010

Letters | Observer | From the Observer | The Observer .

We urge the UK government not to heed the siren song of the 20 economists who, having failed to predict the crisis, now seek to advise on its resolution. The world economy is in the deepest recession since the Great Depression. In the UK, output has collapsed by £70bn on an annual basis. Under such conditions, common sense tells us that the government must compensate for the collapse in private investment and address the high level of unemployment.

The only way to restore the public finances to health is to restore the economy to health. And that means public investment (not cuts) to create jobs and income in the private and the public sector. Government should oblige the banks that have been effectively nationalised to lend to the public sector at low rates of interest. Consequent tax revenues raised and savings on benefit expenditure will reduce the public debt. As Keynes observed: “Look after the unemployment and the budget will look after itself.”

There is already a credible plan on the table. It is called the Green New Deal. Invest now and we could kick-start the transformation of the UK’s energy supply while creating thousands of new green-collar jobs, restoring the UK’s skills-base and building the recovery on the manufacture of necessary goods. We urge the government to act now and implement the Green New Deal without delay.

Andrew Simms

Policy director, new economics foundation, London SE11

David Blanchflower

Professor of economics, Dartmouth College

Dr Anastasia Nesvetailova

Assistant professor, international political economy, City University

Victoria Chick, emeritus professor of economics, University College London

Andy Denis, senior lecturer in political economy, City University London

Ann Pettifor, director, Advocacy International

Christine Cooper, professor of accounting, University of Strathclyde, Scotland

Colin Hines, convenor, Green New Deal Group

George Irvin, professorial research fellow, University of London, SOAS

Ismail Erturk, senior lecturer in Banking, Manchester Business School

Prem Sikka, professor of accounting, Centre for Global Accountability, Essex Business School

Richard Murphy, Tax Research LLP

Dr Stephanie Blankenburg, Department of Economics, SOAS

Stephen Spratt, chief economist, nef and six others

HMRC plans crackdown on 90-day tax exiles

HMRC Comments Off

Feb 182010

Labour plans crackdown on 90-day tax exiles like Mick Jagger and Jenson Button | Business | The First Post.

Gordon Brown’s government is set to crack down on Britain’s super-rich tax exiles, demanding they submit to a “statutory residency test” to prove they have truly cut their ties to Britain. The new rules, says the Guardian, could upset many of the country’s wealthiest business figures and celebrities, such as the property-owning Candy brothers who commute from Monaco, EMI boss Guy Hands who lives in Guernsey, and the Barclay brothers, who own the Daily Telegraph but live on the tiny Channel Island of Sark.

Good news if true.

Better news still if the Tories agreed.

And let’s be candid – ho are they going to disagree?