Andrew Rawnsley wrote a first rate piece on tax havens in the Observer yesterday. I recommend it all. I especially like this bit:
The use of tax havens has become so embedded in corporate culture that leaders are timorous about blasting it away. Ninety eight of the companies in the FTSE-100 use tax havens. One of them is Sainsbury's. You cannot imagine a more domestic company and yet the Fair Tax campaign has identified nine tax haven subsidiaries used by the supermarket chain.
While spouting indignation about tax avoidance, politicians fawn on Eric Schmidt and his ilk. One remedy available to the British government, which could be implemented tomorrow, would be to declare that there will be no jobs as government advisers, knighthoods or any other conferment of approval for the bosses of these companies that don't pay their fair dues. Nor any public sector contracts for corporations that practise aggressive tax avoidance.
I agree. He's got precisely why I think the Fair Tax Campaign is important, although as a director I guess I should.
Thanks for reading this post.
You can share this post on social media of your choice by clicking these icons:
You can subscribe to this blog's daily email here.
And if you would like to support this blog you can, here:
As you’ll recall, Richard, even the Treasury came forward with a similar suggestion about government contracts. But nothing actually came of that.
With regard to the raft of suggestions – which as you and Rawnsley say, could be implemented fairly quickly and without recourse to the OECD or any other mechanism for slowing/stopping action, they won’t happen either for three reasons:
They are incompatible with the dominant ideology and values and beliefs of those in government, and indeed, many of the senior public servants, also.
They would have a direct impact on funding from business and rich individuals to political parties, and particularly the Tory party (imagine, not being able to find an excuse to give donors a gong of some kind).
They would close off opportunities for politicians and senior public servants to move into lucrative private sector employment once they done milking the public purse (sorry, undertaking public service).
In short, although easy to implement and sensible, like lots of good ideas (e.g your suggestion for a passport tax) they would seriously disrupt the systemic basis on which our corrupted system of government is based.
By the way, stay clear of any internet cafes while at the G8, and beware of your mobile phone. GCHQ and the NSA are listening 🙂 Another dimension of the corrupted state.
I assume I am monitored by GCHQ all the time!
It’s quite an eye-opener to see the low marks the Fair tax Campaign gives some of our biggest comapanies! One commentator in the comments section of the Observer article mentions shareholder responsibility for this and how getting a return for shareholders may impair decent wages. WE’ve seen shareholder greed approve enormous bonuses in the banking sector, perhaps this greed encourages the avoidance issue. Surely a companies priority should be for its employees.
they have a legal duty to consider employees