As I've said, it seems like country-by-country reporting day.
The issue was discussed in Parliament yesterday and has been reported in the Guardian. As they reported:
A parliamentary inquiry is likely to press the government into signing an international agreement to force oil, gas and mining companies to report how much tax they pay to developing countries.
The recommendation is expected to follow the conclusion of a series of select committee hearings in front of the International Development Committee, including Tuesday's session where two of the largest multinationals listed on the London Stock Exchange insisted it would be difficult and costly for them to make wider disclosures on taxation.
John Christensen of the Tax Justice Network was amongst those giving evidence yesterday but the Guardian has focussed on those submitting evidence from business. As they note:
Senior executives from commodity trading group Glencore and brewer SAB Miller appeared to resist calls by campaign groups and development agencies for more transparency.
During questioning Tim Scott, global head of tax at Glencore, said: "For country by country reporting of financial information, there are pros and cons. The pros are the transparency. The cons are the cost of producing this information in a reliable and audited format. The second potential disadvantage is with this information it is not clear to me that anybody would be any the wiser on the level of taxation paid or whether the right tax had been paid at all. That is simply because one has to look at financial reports in the context of the tax law and tax returns before one gets a very clear idea. So I'm not too sure that this is amazingly useful."
Lord Browne clearly does not agree. And to be candid, Glencore are just wrong. But not as wrong maybe as Graham Mackay, chief executive of SAB Miller, who said to the committee:
This transparency drive to achieve a right outcome, we believe is doomed.
That's now just tilting against windmills to preserve the right to exploit tax rules, and those days are fast drawing to a close, thankfully. Country-by-country reporting will end them.
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As you’ll know from a few comments from me last week, Richard, I’ve been rather cynical of late as to ‘our’ ability to get things changed. You commented back that paradigm shifts are possible – which I agree – and here is evidence. And I’ll be the first (of many I suspect) to thank you for the part you’ve played over this particular issue.
In fact this week has been a rather good one so far hasn’t it? The Murdoch’s, now cut loose and mortally offended are like lose cannon, exposing the moral and ethically bankrupt nature of contemporary politics and politicians and corrupt practices at the heart of government, thus dragging the political elite down with them (and that’s before Rupert gets stuck in).
Then there was the slating from an influential parliamentary committee over lack of any strategy.
And today Osborne’s boasts of last week are exposed as the absolute bollocks we all knew they were. Indeed, the economic situation is even more bleak than most experts believed. Fancy being a Conservative Chancellor responsible for the first double-dip recession since the 1970s!! First his reputation as a arch political strategist was shredded and now his and his party’s claim to ‘economic credibility.’
And unless I’m badly mistaken in just over a week’s time we’ll have the destruction of the Lib Dems in the local elections.
Mid term blues? More like the population of this country waking up to the lies and deceits that have been a feature of the ConDem government since day one.
Indeed!