Nick Cohen had a great article in the Observer this morning saying: If you want to understand any society, look at its tax system. If one man or a clique can tax at will, you can conclude the society is a dictatorship or oligarchy. If you have reasonably progressive and universal taxes, you can assume
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The Observer has been even handed this morning. As well as reporting the efforts to stop global tax abuse it also gave a column to Eric Schmidt, Google’s global Chairman. I have to say he used it to spread misinformation which I feel duty bound to rebut. He opened saying: At a time when families are
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I was listening to Radio 4 business news at 8.45 this morning on my way to the station. Because of poor reception I could not hear whowas being interviewed. What I do know is that they argued that we will, over the next 25 years, have to accept that parochial national governments will have to
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I have posted twice already on the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) hearing on Google today, once to anticipate it, and again to summarise some details of what was discussed. This blog is different: it’s a reflection. What did we learn form today’s PAC hearing, since these hearings have no become so pivotal in forming opinion on tax
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As the Guardian and many others have noted: Amazon’s main UK subsidiary paid just £3.2m in tax last year, according to accounts filed on Wednesday, despite overall UK sales of £4.2bn. Amazon’s taxes for last year are only marginally higher than the £2.5m the company received in government grants during the year, according to the
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The CBI issued a statement on its seven new tax principles last week. As with most things said by big business on tax these need unpacking to work out what they really mean. here’s my interpretation: 1. UK businesses should only engage in reasonable tax planning that is aligned with commercial and economic activity and does not lead
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From the FT: HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) stepped up its crackdown on tax evasion on Tuesday, publishing its second list of “deliberate tax defaulters” on its website. The list includes 15 names owing more than £25,000 in tax, including two pub landlords and a kebab shop owner. Now I’m the last to deny that
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There’s a very bizarre article in the Guardian from John Harris this morning, looking very like something that’s been fed to him from the Labour policy review. If it is, it’s very worrying. First there’s a ritual slagging off of those wh argue that spending is the way out of recession: From the centre of Labour’s ideological continuum leftwards, there is currently
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WPP was one of the companies that ‘left’ the UK in protest at the controlled foreign company rules that were intended to bring their tax haven activities within the cope of the UK tax net. But, as Ernst & Young have trumpeted in their publication for the Conservatives to which I have drawn attention this morning: The Government’s drive
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