Unison Scotland posted this yesterday:
New public procurement rules in Scotland should help tackle tax dodging, blacklisting and climate change, according to a coalition of civil society coalitions.
International development charities, environmental groups, voluntary organisations and trade unions joined together today (Thursday) to demand that Scotland's annual procurement spend of around £10 billion should promote key sustainable and ethical policy objectives.
The Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations, NIDOS, the Scottish Fair Trade Forum, the STUC and Stop Climate Chaos Scotland published ten updated priorities for forthcoming new procurement regulations and guidance.
I have long agreed with them.
I was pleased to note this in their ten suggestions:
Tax Dodging: Procurement must be used, as part of massively stepped up efforts to tackle tax dodging and tax avoidance, here and in developing countries. This could bring in much-needed billions for the public purse. There should be pre-qualification disclosure of company taxation policies, not just of illegal tax evasion. Country by country reporting should be a condition and companies registered in tax havens should not be eligible. Public bodies should be able to evaluate a tender on the basis of which company pays tax or not, with penalty clauses for tax evasion and aggressive tax avoidance, post contract. Assessment of bids could make use of the Fair Tax Mark and/or other similar checks developed in future that monitor companies' tax behaviour, locally and globally.
I think this is essential. Only then will behaviour really change.
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So your idea is that companies should be forced to ay for YOU to give them their tax mark?
No biased agenda or conflict of interest there!!
Note it says ‘or other’
I have earned nothing from FTM to date and there is no ownership I can gain from
Next?
City Boy, early liquid lunch, probably sleeping it off right now?
Not my experience of Jolyon, no
But others can disagree
What is the difference between tax dodging and tax avoidance?
Dodging adds evasion into the equation
Scotland could leave the EU and make its own rules (something that doesn’t look likely).
But there are a number of reasons a Fair Tax Mark requirement wouldn’t be suitable under current rules (and I wouldn’t touch it in the tenders I work on):
– The Fair Tax Mark doesn’t seem very transparent. The only public information I can find on how it works is from its own website. Who decides whether a FTM is awarded or denied (or whether an accountant can be accredited to distribute it)? Does everyone get it, as long as they pay? Is the mark (or right to award the mark) given or denied on merit, or does it depend on whether your face fits (or doesn’t)? You may know the answer, but I don’t.
– Who is Ethical Consumer? According to its website, it seems a fairly politicised organisation that seems to encourage boycotts. Not suitable for also dispensing accreditations to be used in public tenders.
– It is contrary to the principles of procurement to disqualify bidders unless there is a clear objective fact involved — such as a court conviction (you have one or you don’t). The law already allows the public body to fail a bidder for tax convictions — the FTM or equivalent is irrelevant. The requirements described above seem to allow disqualification on grounds that fall well short of a conviction.
– How do non-UK entities from within the EU bid if they can’t they produce an equivalent ‘tax mark’ from their own countries? It would seem contrary to the requirements of non-discrimination and equal treatment.
As you correctly suggest, public bodies cannot prescribe a single mark like this. They would have to allow ‘equivalents’. Would we expect alternatives to become available? How will our procurement people know one from the other? They aren’t tax experts.
The first two questions are so absurd you simply reveal your bigotry