These are Barclays' tax principles, according to their presentation made today:
(Click on the file for a bigger version)
Are you convinced that means an end to tax avoidance?
After all, tax authorities expect tax avoidance.
And tax avoidance is generally accepted - as the proposed General Anti-Abuse Rule explicitly recognises.
And Google has, for example, said its planning supports genuine commercial activity and it's quite relaxed about it.
And are a bank's values and purpose that good a guide to what is acceptable?
If this is Barclays moving towards acceptability I am going to take a lot of convincing.
Where's the mention of the spirit of the law? Or transparency? And what about foregoing the use of tax havens? What about consistency between substance and form? None of these are mentioned.
Sorry, but in my view this is a tax avoiders charter, not a move into the light. The fact that this was also on page 66 of 67 says a lot, I think.
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It would be interesting to have a side-by-side layout of:
– relevant tax laws
– barclay’s tax principles
– google’s tax principles
– amazon’s tax principles
– stemcor’s tax principles
– starbucks’ tax principles
– etc
A good side-by-side might help shine the light even brighter….
I think that if you are right (and on this occasion I hope you aren’t), Barclays have actually given people a very large stick to beat them with.
Tax planning has to relate to genuine commercial activity? No roundtripping stuff via LVCR, then. No K2 schemes pretending that your wages are a loan via a Jersey company.
If enough people are out there keeping an eye on them – and by that I mean not the Fundamentally Supine Authority, but civil society – I think that they will find their room for manoeuvre will be pretty limited. And as you have always said, tax planning is perfectly reasonable as long as it’s within tolerance of what the authorities intend.
That said, the contractor policy is disappointing, but I would hope that they were not employing that many £60k+ pa contractors!
Anyone who saw the interview between John Snow and the new CE of Barclays, Antony Jenkins, on Channel 4 News Tuesday won’t be in any doubt that the only thing that’s changed at Barclays is they now have a smoother talking CE than previously. But he came across as just as slippery: totally unwilling to answer even the most straightforward question, or admit any wrongdoing. But then what should we expect. Endemic and systemic unlawful activity across the banking sector in the UK and yet not a single senior manager prosecuted. If conclusive evidence were ever required that there’s one law for the rich and another for the rest of us this is it.
Too true. Have you read the foreword to the “strategic review” he wrote? Though I don’t think he is smoother talking that Mr Diamond; his use of language is excruciating.
http://thosebigwords.forumcommunity.net/?t=51300641&p=374849127
As an international tax lawyer I do notice a genuine trend towards les tax driven structures and more companies setting a tax code of ethics, but it will ultimately be the ‘tone at the top’ which will guide the rest of the organization. So I think that if Barclays is sincere it is a good signal for the rest to follow. For the remainder I think a lot of the politicians (especially in the UK) are hypocrits as they are blaming advisors and companies alike while implementing favorable tax regimes to atract companies and assets from other countries, that is really unbelievable!!