{"id":10067,"date":"2011-05-17T10:50:48","date_gmt":"2011-05-17T09:50:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/?p=10067"},"modified":"2011-05-17T10:50:48","modified_gmt":"2011-05-17T09:50:48","slug":"there-is-a-way-of-knowing-how-much-tax-boots-paid-its-called-country-by-country-reporting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/2011\/05\/17\/there-is-a-way-of-knowing-how-much-tax-boots-paid-its-called-country-by-country-reporting\/","title":{"rendered":"There is a way of knowing how much tax Boots paid – it’s called country-by-country reporting"},"content":{"rendered":"

Nils Pratley comments<\/a> in the Guardian today:<\/p>\n

So now we know, privately owned\u00a0Alliance Boots<\/a> paid \u00a3240m in tax in the UK last year. It said so in a slide presented alongside yesterday's annual results that was designed to dispel \"any misunderstanding\".<\/p>\n

Hold on a minute, the company's definition of tax in its slideshow is not the one it uses when presenting the financial results themselves. That's because the \u00a3240m includes business rates and employers' national insurance. Those do indeed represent income for the exchequer. But the fuss is about corporation tax. So, for the sake of full understanding, tell us how much was paid in the UK on that front.<\/p>\n

Alliance Boots declines to say, beyond confirming that it did pay some corporation tax in the UK. It is an international operation these days and is under no obligation to give a country-by-country breakdown of its corporate tax payments.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Well, it should make that\u00a0disclosure. We grant Boots a licence to\u00a0operate\u00a0in this country: we\u00a0have\u00a0a right to know how much tax it pays in exchange and if\u00a0it\u00a0fails to\u00a0disclose\u00a0that then by any\u00a0reasonable\u00a0criteria it's failing in its\u00a0corporate\u00a0responsibilities.<\/p>\n

What is more, there is on the agenda of the\u00a0European Union,\u00a0Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development and\u00a0International Accounting Standards Board a\u00a0proposal\u00a0that would make Boots disclose how much tax it pays in the UK. That proposal\u00a0is\u00a0for an accounting disclosure\u00a0regime\u00a0that I\u00a0admit\u00a0I created: it's called\u00a0country-by-country reporting.<\/p>\n

Country-by-country reporting is\u00a0conceptually\u00a0simple. It says a\u00a0multinational corporations (and Boots is a\u00a0multinational) should disclose a profit and loss account and cash flow plus limited\u00a0balance\u00a0sheet\u00a0information\u00a0for every\u00a0country\u00a0in which it\u00a0trades\u00a0unless the amounts involved are tiny. That profit and loss account and cash flow would include full details of tax provided and paid. So we'd know how much Boots owed and paid in the UK.<\/p>\n

All it needs is political will from our politicians and those in the EU and we\u00a0could\u00a0have this data, for the benefit of us all, so we could hold these companies to account and stop their gross misinformation on how much tax they pay.<\/p>\n

We might get more tax too as a result. And that would be good.<\/p>\n

Full\u00a0details\u00a0on\u00a0country-by-country reporting here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Nils Pratley comments in the Guardian today: So now we know, privately owned\u00a0Alliance Boots paid \u00a3240m in tax in the UK last year. It said
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