{"id":14479,"date":"2012-03-07T11:55:07","date_gmt":"2012-03-07T11:55:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/?p=14479"},"modified":"2012-03-07T11:55:07","modified_gmt":"2012-03-07T11:55:07","slug":"public-tax-returns-for-the-uks-biggest-companies-bring-it-on","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/2012\/03\/07\/public-tax-returns-for-the-uks-biggest-companies-bring-it-on\/","title":{"rendered":"Public tax returns for the UK’s biggest companies? Bring it on!"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Tax Journal has an\u00a0interesting\u00a0feature this week<\/a> (honest, it's possible). In it they note in response to the Barclays tax scandal:<\/p>\n

A leading tax adviser and lecturer has questioned whether the tax returns of companies listed on the stock exchange should remain confidential, after a Conservative MP said public limited companies should be required to publish accounts of their tax affairs as well as financial reports and accounts.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Now, I call that realm progress towards\u00a0transparency. Who was the MP:<\/p>\n

David Davis, the Conservative MP for Haltemprice and Howden, was the Shadow Home Secretary between 2003 and 2008. Writing in\u00a0The Times\u00a0<\/em>last week, Davis said it was important that the government \u2018reacts to Barclays\u2019 doubtful tax practices not just by heaping opprobrium on business, but by finding a solution that stops it happening again\u2019.<\/p>\n

The Barclays affair and the Vodafone and Goldman Sachs \u2018sagas\u2019 suggested \u2018a very big problem with the way that HMRC handles the tax affairs of large corporations\u2019, he claimed. \u2018The fundamental problem is the secrecy with which HMRC treats corporate tax affairs. Because corporations are \u201clegal personalities\u201d they enjoy the same confidentiality as is properly given to private citizens.<\/p>\n

\u2018As a result, tax dealings between corporations and government are done in the dark and the complex tax affairs of public companies are anything but public. Draconian penalties fall on any official who breaks this omert\u00c3\u00a0,\u2019 he added.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

He's absolutely right. It's not\u00a0often\u00a0I will say that of Davis, but on this he is. The idea that a large\u00a0corporation\u00a0should enjoy the same privacy as an individual is ludicrous.\u00a0And\u00a0he had\u00a0support:<\/p>\n

Pete Miller, a Partner at The Miller Partnership, said he wondered \u2018whether there is a debate to be had as to whether publicly listed companies should continue to enjoy full confidentiality in respect of their tax affairs\u2019.<\/p>\n

Miller, a member of\u00a0Tax Journal\u2019s\u00a0<\/em>editorial board, wrote in this week\u2019s issue: \u2018This is a radical suggestion for the UK and I am certainly not suggesting that, for example, HMRC enquiries into companies\u2019 tax returns be carried out in public. But companies list on stock exchanges in order to be able to raise money from the public.<\/p>\n

\u2018As a result, they are required to make a lot of information publicly available, to allow investors to carry out appropriate due diligence and to satisfy themselves as to the security and level of risk of their investment. If the tax affairs of a company have a material impact on those companies, as in the current Glasgow Rangers case, for example, is there an argument that this information should also be publicly available to investors?\u2019<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I of course think so.<\/p>\n

Then a more\u00a0familiar\u00a0voice got quoted:<\/p>\n

Campaigners against tax avoidance have argued that disclosure of tax returns should be a \u2018corollary\u2019 of limited liability. Richard Murphy, Director of Tax Research, said last December that it was \u2018time for corporation tax returns to go online\u2019.<\/p>\n

Murphy\u00a0cited a\u00a0Financial Times\u00a0<\/em>editorial which suggested that there were \u2018good reasons why everyone should not be able to pick through every individual\u2019s tax returns\u2019 but [the argument] was \u2018weaker in the case of companies, where there is also a greater case for scrutiny given the heftier clout such corporations wield\u2019.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Are times changing? It seems so. And none too soon.<\/p>\n

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

The Tax Journal has an\u00a0interesting\u00a0feature this week (honest, it’s possible). In it they note in response to the Barclays tax scandal: A leading tax adviser
 Read the full article…<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[64],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14479","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-corporation-tax"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14479","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14479"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14479\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14479"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14479"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14479"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}