Bloomberg reports: The 15 biggest banks operating in the U.K. have adopted a government code of practice on reducing tax avoidance, Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg said. The code, which until October had only been supported by four of the 15, requires the banks to “follow the spirit of the law in addition to the
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I was on Radio Ulster this morning. The following article on the local BBC web site has resulted: A leading tax expert has said that devolving corporation tax powers to Northern Ireland would cost it £300m from the Westminster block grant. NI business leaders have united in a call for corporation tax to be devolved
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The world’s economies are creaking. Its bank are failing. Countries are collapsing. So what sense is there in this?: And what happens when these markets fall over, again?

A new web site has been launched called ‚ÄòFalse Economy’. As they say on their home page, False Economy is for everyone concerned about the impact of the government’s spending cuts on their community, their family or their job. I suggest you start by looking at this video by Sam West, and go on from
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Award winning Private Eye journalist and former tax inspector Richard Brooks (who is behind the Vodafone tax story, and very much more that is well worthwhile) is co-author of the ActionAd report on SAB MIller I mentioned yesterday. It’s that fact that gives me confidence in the report. And today he’s writing in the Guardian,
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The whole premise of he government’s economic policy is that we’re going to grow out of recession and that business is going to rush in to fill the void government spending cuts create in the economy – from which business has been to date “squeezed out” by over-active government. This is summarised ion this table
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Reports in all newspapers this morning suggest that the Irish bail out has not worked: the markets have reacted without enthusiasm and the talk is, inevitably, of contagion, It’s almost assumed now that Portugal and Spain will follow suit. Belgium is next on the list. And I doubt that will be the end of it.
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As the Guardian reports: Prince Andrew launched a scathing attack on British anticorruption investigators, journalists and the French during an "astonishingly candid" performance at an official engagement that shocked a US diplomat. Tatiana Gfoeller, Washington’s ambassador to Kyrgyzstan, recorded in a secret cable that Andrew spoke "cockily" at the brunch with British and Canadian business
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The FT reports: Billions of euros of EU funds to promote growth in Europe’s rundown regions are lying idle because cash-strapped national governments cannot find the necessary matching funds to release the money. But this is not just an EU problem. I was talking to a charity trustee the other day who said fund raising
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