Unitary taxation would tax Google, Amazon, and the others who are intent on free-riding

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I've been asked to suggest how we could stop Google, Amazon and others beating the UK tax system, as they beat many of the tax systems around the world. One answer is unitary taxation.

In December the Tax Justice Network published a paper by Sol Picciotto explaining unitary taxation. Amid rising public concern at how multinational firms ride roughshod over international tax rules, the paper advocated a shift to a system unitary tax system because under this approach the global profits of a multinational are ‘apportioned out' to countries according to the genuine economic substance of what it does in each place. Each country can then tax its share of global profits at its own rate.

Not everyone agrees, of course, so another paper, also written by Prof. Picciotto has answered ten criticisms of the approach.

What's important about all this? Well, it shows we don't have to put up with corporate tax abuse. There are alternatives. And the fact is, those alternatives would work. That's why we promote them.

The question is, why isn't the idea getting the support it deserves?


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