The Public Accounts Committee hearing with the Big 4 accountants took place this morning. If I’m honest I do not think a killer blow was delivered: I’d have loved there to be a question, for example, on what each firm would have done for a client who wanted to take part in  Jimmy Carr type scheme; would they have introduced
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The Apopalyptics take on tax-dodging multi-national corporations Lyrics: Money on an island © O.McEldowney/D.Cole 2012 You can keep your money on an island You can keep your money safe from prying eyes You can keep your money on an island You can keep your money out of sight Bet your money on it! Tax havens,
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The fight back against the suggestion that companies are tax avoiding is well under way. John Gapper is arguing in the FT today that companes like Starbucks simply complied with the law and that as result no tax avoidance took place. The same argument has certainly been made by commentators on this blog. And I
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Sky has just reported: HSBC is to recruit a line-up of heavyweight figures including Britain’s former top taxman to oversee a new effort to combat financial crime following the bank’s $1.9bn settlement of money-laundering allegations late last year. I have learnt that Dave Hartnett, former head of Her Majesty’s Revenue & Customs (HMRC), and Bill
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I’ve already noted this morning that Jersey has conceded that the UK has all the power in its relationship with the USA over FATCA. It made another interesting concession in questions and answers made yesterday in the States of Jersey. The following exchange took place, with Geoff Southern, a long term friend of tax justice, asking the question:
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Last November I helped expose the fact that the UK was demanding that the Crown Dependencies grant it full automatic information exchange as a condition of agreeing to each of the Isle of Man, Jersey and Guernsey entering into deals with the USA on the Foreign Accountants Tax Compliance Act (FATCA). The Isle of Man has now agreed to the UK’s demands. Jersey and Guernsey
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It’s worth recalling in the light of my last post what the White House had to say about offshoring of profits in 2009. In that year they said: Nearly one-third of all foreign profits reported by U.S. corporations in 2003 came from just three small, low-tax countries: Bermuda, the Netherlands, and Ireland. That then was
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Reuters has reported this morning that: U.S.-based global companies are increasingly shifting profits into tax havens like Bermuda and Switzerland, a US government report said, a finding likely to fuel debate over the taxes corporations pay and their flexibility in locating profits. The Congressional Research Service analyzed profit data from multinational companiesand compared reported profits and
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David Cay Johnston has written a long report on TaxAnalysts.com on Dell. I won’t reiterate it here: the whole story is available on line. I recommend giving it a read.