{"id":27632,"date":"2015-02-02T13:17:31","date_gmt":"2015-02-02T13:17:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/?p=27632"},"modified":"2015-02-02T13:22:38","modified_gmt":"2015-02-02T13:22:38","slug":"the-fair-tax-mark-in-the-ft","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/2015\/02\/02\/the-fair-tax-mark-in-the-ft\/","title":{"rendered":"The Fair Tax Mark in the FT"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last week the\u00a0Fair Tax Mark<\/a>, of which I am a director,\u00a0was in the Times<\/a>. Today it is in the FT<\/a>. As they say:<\/p>\n

\n

For the UK\u2019s second-largest energy supplier, tax is not just a cost<\/a>; it has also become a marketing tool.<\/p>\n

In SSE\u2019s current advertising campaign, it trumpets that it pays the tax it owes \u201cdown to the last penny\u201d \u2013 a claim backed by the Fair Tax Mark, an accreditation scheme for \u201cresponsible\u201d taxpayers.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The report is reasonably balanced, but includes some criticisms. One is a comment from the CBI on\u00a0country-by-country reporting, which is only partly an FTM issue, of which they say:<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u201crather than improving transparency, [country by country reporting on tax] risks reducing public understanding of the tax debate by swamping people in highly complex data with no context\u201d.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It's yet more crass tax commentary from the CBI. The data is a profit and loss account. The context is a specific country. What's complex or hard to understand about that, unless of course you take a patronising attitude to all users of accounts that assumes them wholly unable to think for themselves.<\/p>\n

The then there is\u00a0Judith Freedman, a tax law professor at Oxford university, who says:<\/p>\n

\u201cI am not convinced it is giving us useful information. It could be misleading. I don\u2019t see why [businesses] should sign up for it.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

If you look at the list of sponsors for the\u00a0Oxford Centre for Business Taxation<\/a> you might see why. And I know Judith will protest at me saying so, but I do think that matters, a lot, just as my own sponsorship by unions does.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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

Last week the\u00a0Fair Tax Mark, of which I am a director,\u00a0was in the Times. Today it is in the FT. As they say: For the
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