The Tories said when coming into office that they\u00a0would\u00a0create a UK tax system that said we are \"open for business\".<\/p>\n
They forgot to mention that meant we were really open to be fleeced. Which is just what the likes of Amazon, Starbucks and Google<\/a> are doing. Beghind their crocodile tears on the\u00a0impossibility\u00a0of making money in the UK they're laughing all the way to their tax haven bank.<\/p>\n And now, quite rightly, Andy Street of UK retailer John Lewis has hit back, saying<\/a>\u00a0that\u00a0the government has to tackle multinational companies that pay little or no tax in the UK before they damage the economy. His warning is simple: he's saying that\u00a0\u00a0multinationals involved in overseas tax havens will \"outinvest and ultimately out-trade\" businesses paying full taxes in the UK, risking driving them out of business.<\/p>\n And he's right. It's taken a while for British business to\u00a0realise\u00a0this. Way back in the\u00a0Tax Justice Network's first ever major\u00a0publication\u00a0in 2005 (which I co-wrote with John Christensen) we said<\/a>:<\/p>\n The ability of transnational corporations to\u00a0structure their trade and investment flows through paper\u00a0subsidiaries in tax havens provides them with a significant tax advantage over\u00a0their nationally based competitors. In practice this\u00a0biased tax treatment favours the\u00a0large business over the small\u00a0one, the international business\u00a0over the national one, and the\u00a0long-established business over\u00a0the start-up. It follows, simply\u00a0because most businesses in the\u00a0developing world are smaller\u00a0and newer than those in the\u00a0developed world and typically\u00a0more domestically focussed, that\u00a0this inbuilt bias in the tax system\u00a0generally favours multinational\u00a0businesses from the North over\u00a0their domestic competitors in\u00a0developing countries.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n It has taken seven yearsa for people to realise we were right, but now the message is loud and clear: the tax compeititon that the Tories and their friends promote harms UK business. As a result it is bad for out economy. And worse, it now only destroys our business, it shifts the tax burden onto ordinary people who are unable to pay, increases ineqaulity and destroys hope all at the same time.<\/p>\n That's why we need to change our tax system, now.<\/p>\n It's the most pro-business policy anyone can promote.<\/p>\n And what is more, opposing tax havens is also a totally pro-business policy too.<\/p>\n It's time UK\u00a0business\u00a0and politicians woke up and realised that fact. Because fact it is.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"