The IMF has published a report on the cut of Moldovan corporation tax rates to zero and says:
Global economic integration [has] intensified tax competition and raised concerns about the resulting “race to the bottom”, which could undermine public investment and social spending.
The aim of this paper is to test predictions that (i) there is interdependence [...]
I’ve already shown how disastrous George Osborne’s reaction to the latest round of corporate inversions in the UK would be, but let’s give him credit where it is due: he has noticed there is an issue to deal with; he’s just come up with a hopelessly inappropriate solution. In saying so it is however beholden [...]
George Osborne wrote a letter to Alistair Darling on Friday as a consequence of the reported news that Regus, Charter and Henderson are all leaving the UK for a combination of Jersey and Ireland. This is what he wrote:
Dear Alistair,
I’m sure you are as concerned as I am about the news that Regus, Henderson Group [...]
So three more companies are planning to leave the UK.
Let’s as usual set this in context: Charter has not paid UK tax and has no intention of doing so. They are a typical ‘free rifer’ - wanting to get all the benefits of the UK but wishing to pay nothing for them.
And Henderson and Regus [...]
There’s been a lot written about Merrill Lynch International (MLI), but it seems no one has bothered to actually analyse the accounts that include the $16 billion dollar loss. I have. For your convenience they are here, and those for 2006 here.
I’m not for one minute pretending what follows is a full analysis by the [...]
Tax compliance is paying the right amount of tax (but no more) in the right place at the right time where right means that the economic substance of the transaction and the form in which it is reported for taxation purposes coincide.
There’s not one comment I have read on Merrill Lynch booking its US subprime [...]
Here’s another classic from the Institute for Fiscal Studies:
To discourage investors from hiding their wealth in foreign tax havens, the authors recommend exempting interest income from personal tax, and allowing shareholders to deduct an imputed normal return on the basis of their shares before imposing tax on dividends and capital gains.
Based on 2005/06 data this [...]
In really haven’t given the IFS enough attention of late. In June they issued a press release saying this:
Corporation tax should be reformed or replaced by a higher VAT rate (offset by lower National Insurance contributions) to reduce disincentives to invest in the UK, according to two studies commissioned by the Mirrlees Review of the [...]
The Washington Post has reported that:
About two-thirds of corporations operating in the United States did not pay taxes annually from 1998 to 2005, according to a new report scheduled to be made public today from the U.S. Government Accountability Office.
In 2005, after collectively making $2.5 trillion in sales, corporations gave a variety of reasons on [...]
The follwoing comes from the Greenpeace International website. As I contributed to the report “Conning the Congo” to which it refers, I’m happy to reproduce it here.
Conning the Congo
Just as the need to save the world’s forests for climate protection is becoming widely recognised, we have discovered that major logging companies - operating in the [...]
