It looks very likely that the G8 is going to be a failure for Cameron - not least on tax. Everyone is expecting me to be down - and in one sense, of course I am.
And then again, I'm not. As I told Al Jazeera this morning, I came here to be disappointed - that was inevitable. I want delivery on all my hopes - and am quite sensible enough to know that's not going to happen, yet.
But, and this is the key point, the G8 has moved this agenda forward by several years. It won't deliver on the hopes, but it has created a new direction of travel and made it clear the world has to go down the road of beating tax abuse or a backlash will happen.
The G8 has succeeded at that level.
I am expecting the world's leaders to fail us. They'll need to be held to account for that.
That process of holding to account begins in a few hours - and rightly so, unless miracles happen in the meantime.
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I am personally doubtful that there will be much progress with the G8, mainly because I wonder what is in it for the USA.
The US could quite easily tax Google/Amazon/Starbucks etc by simply changing their own rules to tax the corporate profits without them needing to be remitted. Changing the rules internationally in a way that taxes these corporations in other countries would reduce the theoretical value of US companies and possibly reduce the amount of tax the US can collected in the process. It appears rather unlikely that a major European multi-national would be trading in the US without a US based corporation which would already be caught by their tax rules. Can anybody point to anything like a European Google/Amazon/Starbucks that trades in the US without being taxed?
The real issue is in the European Union where it is quite practical, acceptable and even encouraged for companies to be incorporated in one jurisdiction and to trade across the borders.
I think there is a world of difference between the USA being unhappy that subsidiaries of its own multi-nationals don’t remit those funds and pay US taxes and the US moving forward with something that will simply ensure its multi-nationals pay taxes elsewhere.
I have about as much belief that will happen as I have confidence that some sort of amazing trade agreement between the USA and EU is about to be created which will benefit the EU more than the USA.
All the very best Richard – you and TJN have done a lot to bring this onto the G8 agenda as a top priority and deserve huge credit. Well done and I am sure it will make a difference to bring the MNC to account.
I’d like to hope you are right. I had hopes that Labour’s “ethical foreign policy” would deliver a sea change. I knew they would fail – they were bound to, but I didn’t foresee how badly they would fail (Iraq etc etc)
Eric Scmvasion.idt of Google, had the cheek to blame Governments for Google’s Tax avoidence (evasion). Therefore G8 has to show leadership, to have any crediblity with their voters, who are being asked to pay more tax in return for less being spent on their education and health.