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Category Archives: CSR

To Tesco, an apology

03-May-08

This apology is correct.
It became obvious the Guardian got this story wrong, at least in part, after it was published. I’m afraid there was a logic flaw in it, and this outcome was inevitable for that technical reason. Although some thought otherwise, I did not advise in detail on his story before publication.
But let’s be […]

Every little helps

14-Mar-08

I offer this from the Guardian diary, which seems an apt comment on Tesco’s CSR:

We thank reader John Hill for his sighting of a Tesco lorry that bore an adapted version of the company’s slogan. “Every little helps”
[T]has a very different meaning with the first and last letters obscured.

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KPMG - there is no morality in taxation

05-Mar-08

The December edition of Finance Magazine in Ireland, sponsored by KPMG had an article entitled ‘Is Tax on Your Board’s Agenda’ in it. Written by Liam Lynch, a tax partner at KPMG it includes this classic:

The ‘moral’ agenda
Alongside these developments, a worrying tendency seems to have emerged among external stakeholders to make ‘moral’ judgements about […]

Tescos: distorting fair competition

05-Mar-08

John Christensen of the Tax Justice Network had this letter in the Guardian this morning:

Tesco claims in its corporate responsibility statement that it uses its size and success to be “a force for good” in the communities where it operates. Its aggressive tax planning (Tesco’s £1bn tax avoiding plan - move to the Cayman Islands, […]

Tescos: seeking to avoid their tax abuse

01-Mar-08

If you search Google blogs for Tescos tax tonight you’ll find this:

Tesco’s tax scheme: It’s not big and it’s not clever
29 Feb 2008Tesco’s tax avoidance scheme dwarfs tax losses from income shifting, Simon Sweetman says “It’s not big and it’s not clever”. Which of course is counter-intuitive, because Tesco is very big and very clever. […]

Tescos: why did they fight so hard to stop their tax story being told?

27-Feb-08

The Guardian has published some good old fashioned investigative reporting on Tescos today. As it says:

Tesco has created an elaborate corporate structure involving offshore tax havens which enables it to avoid paying what could be up to £1bn of tax on profits from the sale of its UK properties.
The complex new structures uncovered by a […]

Tax havens are engaged in economic warfare

25-Feb-08

Nick Cohen has responded to all those (and there were quite a lot of them mysteriously mainly from tax havens) who defended Liechtenstein in the pages of the FT last week. As he put it:
All missed the point that tax havens are inherently criminal and would go under without the proceeds of crime.
And, as he […]

Northern Rock: Hedge funds prove shareholders have too much power

07-Jan-08

The Guardian has reported that:
One of Northern Rock’s largest shareholders has challenged the bank’s board to a public fight over its future at a meeting of investors scheduled for next week.

RAB Capital, the hedge fund which owns almost 7.6% of the bank, said it would attend the extraordinary shareholder’s meeting on January 15 to persuade […]

Multi-million bonuses shame City

17-Dec-07

War on Want issued the follwoing press release today:

Tax haven poverty alert
The City of London today came under fire for paying out million of pounds in Christmas bonuses while denying many of the world’s poorest countries the tax owed by British companies.
The anti-poverty charity War on Want attacked the City amid reports that dozens of […]

KPMG really said it - 1

23-Oct-07

I’ve been giving the recent KPMG paper on tax and CSR a more thorough read. It’s made me think a lot, but as usual with KPMG publications my thoughts have flowed along two themes.
The first is what it does not say, on which there’s enough to write a small book. I might just get around […]

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