{"id":18726,"date":"2012-12-27T09:09:00","date_gmt":"2012-12-27T09:09:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/?p=18726"},"modified":"2012-12-27T09:09:00","modified_gmt":"2012-12-27T09:09:00","slug":"tax-is-on-the-agenda-for-2013-and-thereafter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/2012\/12\/27\/tax-is-on-the-agenda-for-2013-and-thereafter\/","title":{"rendered":"Tax is on the agenda for 2013 and thereafter"},"content":{"rendered":"

It's slightly annoying to find Nils Pratley has written pretty\u00a0much\u00a0the blog I was thinking of doing this morning when musing on the day ahead, and now I've read his I can't claim\u00a0originality. So, what the heck, I'll quote him instead<\/a>.<\/p>\n

His first point it important: he says that there is a difference between\u00a0complying\u00a0with the letter and the spirit of the law, which I've\u00a0long\u00a0argued. More than that, he\u00a0obviously\u00a0now thinks that\u00a0this\u00a0is now established as prevailing opinion<\/p>\n

Starbucks was surprised by the anger that greeted the revelation that it has paid very little corporation tax in the UK in its 14 years of operation in the country. The company insisted, convincingly, that it has played by the tax rules. But in gifting \u00a320m to the taxman it admitted, in effect, that legal and ethical behaviour are different things, at least in the public's mind.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

His second point is where I was going next. It's this:<\/p>\n

Just as Starbucks was ill-prepared for the new mood towards\u00a0tax avoidance, so too is the government. The tax system, by treating multinationals so favourably, is the real villain. The public accounts committee told the government to \"get a grip\" on large corporations which generate significant income in the UK but pay little or no tax.<\/p>\n

Does the government have a plan? The chancellor's autumn statement was full of warm words about clamping down on tax avoidance but it hardly amounted to a promise that the likes of Google and Amazon will pay more. The coalition's headache on this issue will intensify \u2014 anger over amoral corporations could easily be replaced by fury at government inaction.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This will be, I think. be a big issue in UK politics in 2013.<\/p>\n

People now know that we're not all in it together. They know big \u00a0business is not pulling its weight. They know pressure can be brought to bear on it. And they're going to expect that to happen.<\/p>\n

I can't see the tax\u00a0issue\u00a0going away from now until May 2015, or\u00a0thereafter\u00a0come to that.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It’s slightly annoying to find Nils Pratley has written pretty\u00a0much\u00a0the blog I was thinking of doing this morning when musing on the day ahead, and
 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":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18726","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-tax-avoidance"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18726","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=18726"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18726\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18726"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18726"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18726"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}