Vodafone reported this in 2010:
On 22 July 2010 Vodafone reached agreement with the UK tax authorities with respect to the CFC tax case. Vodafone will pay £1.25bn to settle all outstanding CFC issues from 2001 to date and has also reached agreement that no further UK CFC tax liabilities will arise in the near future under current legislation. Longer term, no CFC liabilities are expected to arise as a consequence of the likely reforms of the UK CFC regime due to the facts established in this agreement. The settlement comprises £800m in the current financial year with the balance to be paid in instalments over the following five years.
For the last two years Vodafone has not paid any tax in the UK.
Could it just be these events are connected? After all, under the HMRC deal Vodafone was let off all tax on its tax haven activities - giving it a licence to increase profits in them without consequence thereafter at cost to the UK.
I have no way of knowing the answer - the information is not available. But the coincidence is one to ponder.
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Richard, do you know whether a tax haven subsidiary provided the funds for the 4G (?) licence? If so, it will support your suggestion about the link between the 2010 deal and the absence of CT liability two years running.
No – as I have pointed out – Vodafone do not do country by country reporting
I have merely asked a question
Although as you already noted, they have disclosed UK operating profits of £294m (from which you deduct financing costs). The CFC profits wouldn’t be in that number.
If you, “… have no way of knowing the answer — the information is not available” isn’t this no more than just wild speculation and mud slinging?
Of course it is speculation
Based on a hypothesis
@ledbetter, Richard’s question seems like a legitimate one for Vodafone to answer. I’ve just read their 16-page statement and it doesn’t provide enough information to answer it.
Why do you apply different standards of enquiry to different tax payers? It undermines your claim to be interested in tax justice. Two days ago you answered Pellinor’s reference to HMRC giving the nod and wink to charities’ tax scams with “so it isn’t tax avoidance. Thank you” by contrast the deal with Vodafone, tested by Judicial Review, is still referred to as a sweetheart deal.
I might start my own blog, one dedicated to investigating tax avoidance; there is clearly a gap in the market.
One is considered legal and acceptable
The other not
It’s really hard to spot the difference, isn’t it?
Goldman Sachs sweetheart deal was never tested in a judicial review. It was only waived through by the NAO, whose boss Amyas Morse (ex PWC) told the PAC in Nov 2010 (before the first review) and Dave Hartnett in Dec 2011 (before the second review) that nothing of substance would be discovered in the reviews! So it was a cover up. If Vodafone is sure of their version of events, why haven’t they sued Private Eye who have been accusing them on this issue for 3 years now. Surely that’s the best way to settle it once and for all.
Waiting for Hairnet to join Vodafone.
Wonder what network he’s on ?
@Bob, Hartnett joining Vodafone’s tax advisers – Deloitte – is as good (or as bad) as joining Vodafone. Indeed his acolyte John Connors who left HMRC to become Vodafone’s head of tax and who with Hartnett and Cruickshank of Deloitte struck the sweetheart deal – is already the top tax job at Vodafone. So the Deloitte post is the natural one.
thanks, i’ve been looking for a suitable stage nom for him for a while – `dolly hairnet`, he and dud billwell would make a good panto horse
There we see the different standards again. “Considered legal and acceptable” by whom? Whose objective standards? “The other isn’t” Again, by whom?
The truth is there are certain tax stories you want to run and certain stories you just don’t. Whatever it is you are doing here, “tax research” isn’t it.
Acceptable as in moral people would think so
The liberal rather than the neoliberal view
The view of those who seek meaning, not literalism
That’s a long and honourable tradition of research
I have an ethical question.
If I want a smaller State, but no political party proposes one, surely even very aggressive tax avoidance is a perfectly legal AND moral position for me to have?
No different to someone like you voluntarily paying more tax than is required because you want a larger State?
Would you agree with that?
No
You want a state – so you work within the rules of the state to deliver the one you want
That means you use the ballot box not tax abuse – because you have been given that way of making change
If there was no way of making change other methods may be acceptable
And for the record – I ask for n one to pay more tax than is required