{"id":15185,"date":"2012-04-22T00:03:34","date_gmt":"2012-04-21T23:03:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/?p=15185"},"modified":"2012-04-22T00:03:34","modified_gmt":"2012-04-21T23:03:34","slug":"cbi-tax-misinformation-that-it-condemns-secrecy-in-tax-havens","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/2012\/04\/22\/cbi-tax-misinformation-that-it-condemns-secrecy-in-tax-havens\/","title":{"rendered":"CBI tax misinformation – that it condemns secrecy in tax havens"},"content":{"rendered":"

John Cridland said in his CBI tax speech on 19 April when referring to the use of tax havens<\/a>:<\/p>\n

But with tax sovereignty must go tax transparency. UK business must \u2014 and\u00a0already does \u2014 co-operate with the authorities in these countries to help stamp \u00a0out illegal activity.<\/p>\n

We also recognise the OECD has been doing much good work to encourage inter-government co-operation and the exchange of information.<\/p>\n

So we need to be clear what we mean by so-called tax havens. I do not consider a low-tax regime with transparency a tax haven. But I do believe that there must be transparency between tax regimes in order to avoid inappropriate arrangements hiding behind tax secrecy.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I could, and may yet, elaborate on how absurd this argument is at length. But what he is saying is that if 12 of the almost meaningless - and as the French are\u00a0finding, almost impossible to use -\u00a0tax information exchange agreements that the OECD have\u00a0prescribed\u00a0that a tax haven must have with 12 other\u00a0jurisdictions\u00a0-\u00a0including\u00a0other tax havens - have been signed by a place then there is tax\u00a0transparency\u00a0and so one of its\u00a0members\u00a0may trade in the place with impunity.<\/p>\n

The weaknesses with TIEAs are explained here<\/a> and here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

This is absurd. This is \u00a0not\u00a0transparency. I can find literally nothing out about the\u00a0activities\u00a0of the subsidiary on a\u00a0multinational corporations in jersey,\u00a0Guernsey, Cayman, the BVI and so man y other places. But Cridland pretends that's\u00a0transparent. That's not just nonsense - that's wilful misrepresentation of the truth.<\/p>\n

Thankfully this was drawn to his attention after his speech. The Tax Journal reports<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

During a question and answer session at the Policy Exchange event, Salman Shaheen, Indirect Tax Editor at\u00a0International Tax Review<\/em>, noted that \u2018everyone on the panel seems to be backing the idea that business should be making its case more strongly\u2019. Surely the best way to do that would be to back country by country reporting, he suggested. \u2018If you have nothing to hide, why hide?\u2019<\/p>\n

David Gauke, the Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury, said the jury was \u2018still out\u2019 on how effective country by country reporting would be, the level of detail needed to hold companies to account and whether the administrative burden would be disproportionate. \u2018The OECD is looking at that, and we\u2019re interested to see where that goes,\u2019 he said.<\/p>\n

In its submission last year to the EC\u2019s consultation on new accounting standards to require country by country reporting, the CBI argued that the reform would impose \u2018significant\u2019 additional costs and workload. \u2018The purpose of improving tax governance at a global level through disclosure in financial reports is outside the scope of all-purpose financial statements,\u2019 it said.<\/p>\n

Financial statements should focus on \u2018being an effective communications tool with shareholders, and not a general repository of miscellaneous and unhelpful or irrelevant information\u2019.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n

Let me advise that right now the whole NGO has doubts about the good faith of the OECD on this issue, and with good reason. \u00a0But let me also add, if you believe in\u00a0transparency\u00a0about tax havens you'd believe in\u00a0country-by-country reporting<\/a>: the CBI\u00a0oppose\u00a0it.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
They help cover tax haven\u00a0abuse\u00a0as a result. Their claim to condemn opaque use of tax havens is as a result another sham, and a shameless one at that.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

John Cridland said in his CBI tax speech on 19 April when referring to the use of tax havens: But with tax sovereignty must go
 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":[17,79,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15185","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cbi","category-country-by-country","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15185","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=15185"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15185\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15185"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15185"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15185"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}