The following exchange took place in the House of Lords yesterday:
Baroness Kramer: My Lords, I am glad that the Government are ending Labour's indulgence to business on tax issues but, like many others here, I would like to play a part with my purchasing power. Is there a way we can find out who the good guys are so that we do not have to use the likes of Amazon, Google and Starbucks and can transfer our business elsewhere?
Lord Newby: The Government have yet to establish a good guys' website but it is an extremely good idea. In the mean time, I suspect that the noble Baroness will just have to read the newspapers.
Lord Davies of Oldham: My Lords, the worry would be that if the Government constructed a good guys' website they would not be on it. The Minister is absolutely right: we need international action. However, the significant European countries taking action with regard to places such as Monaco point a very accusatory finger at the UK Government, with our plethora of regimes that are in fact tax havens. That is why the Government should be taking a lead, not following others.
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“ending Labour’s indulgence..” What will they think of next? Anyone that isn’t rabidly Tory will have realised that Labour’s last outing was more Tory than ever before. The laxity on taxing has been endemic whichever the ruling party, and has gone on for over 40 years according to two former tax inspectors that I know. That is not just corporate, but also personal taxation.
Money buys freedom in so many ways these days, and now it’s freedom from tax.
What a great country we live in.
As for the good guys website, wouldn’t it be easier to just chuck a tax dodger out of this country? Extradition and seizing of assets, with a sell-off to fund the missing money, whether that’s an individual or a company.
Great idea. It will let the shareholders of any company on the “good guys” website know that their Finance Directors are incompetent and they can vote for removal.
Why do we need 20,000 extra HMRC staff when you can identify these companies single handedly with unswerving accuracy based on no more than publicly available data. Not only could we collect much more tax we could do it at much less cost. You truely are a wonder of the age.
Amusing that Susan Kramer criticises the last Labour govt for “indulgence to business on tax issues” while conveniently neglecting to mention that the Tory government she and her Lib Dem colleagues are propping up is in many ways *more* indulgent to business on tax issues than New Labour ever was… nonetheless, a “good guys” website would be a useful idea.
What about a “Fair Tax” mark, based on a consensus reached by tax experts, businesses, HMRC and concerned citizens, that companies can use.
We are doing just that….