{"id":32230,"date":"2016-02-04T08:26:26","date_gmt":"2016-02-04T08:26:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/?p=32230"},"modified":"2016-02-04T08:26:26","modified_gmt":"2016-02-04T08:26:26","slug":"if-george-osborne-is-committed-to-country-by-country-reporting-why-didnt-the-government-say-so-yesterday","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/2016\/02\/04\/if-george-osborne-is-committed-to-country-by-country-reporting-why-didnt-the-government-say-so-yesterday\/","title":{"rendered":"If George Osborne is committed to country-by-country reporting why didn’t the government say so yesterday?"},"content":{"rendered":"

There was a debate in the Commons yesterday <\/a>on Google's tax affairs and what can be done to improve tax collection from\u00a0multinational corporations.<\/p>\n

I've read it. I have exchanged opinion on Twitter with Christopher Philps MP who seriously misrepresented what I said at the Treasury Committee on Tuesday. I'm grateful to others who quoted me appropriately.<\/p>\n

But what really interested me about the debate was that Labour unambiguously supported the case for\u00a0country-by-country reporting. And despite the claim made only days ago that George Osborne was in favour of public\u00a0country-by-country reporting <\/a>not a single Conservative said that, and nor did the government amendment to labour's motion, which was passed. On this\u00a0issue that amendment said:<\/p>\n

[T]he Government recognises the case for publishing country-by-country reports on a multilateral basis<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So that, then, is a commitment to\u00a0country-by-country reporting if everyone who objects to it agrees to change their mind. That's no commitment at all in other words: that's just noise that is meant to suggest one thing (support) whilst actually doing the opposite (standing on the side lines waiting for nothing to happen).<\/p>\n

If this government is committed to holding\u00a0multinational corporations to account it should say so.<\/p>\n

Right now its actions speak loudest and they make clear that it really has no intention of making\u00a0multinational corporations account on a\u00a0country-by-country reporting basis.<\/p>\n

That's a sorry day for us all. I look forward to a change of heart.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There was a debate in the Commons yesterday on Google’s tax affairs and what can be done to improve tax collection from\u00a0multinational corporations. I’ve read
 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":[79],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-32230","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-country-by-country"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32230","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=32230"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32230\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32230"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32230"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32230"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}