I'm appearing before the House of Lords Economic Affairs Finance Bill sub-Committee this afternoon to respond to questions on the\u00a0government's\u00a0new\u00a0approach\u00a0to\u00a0taxation\u00a0policy, anti-avoidance, disguised remuneration and\u00a0corporation\u00a0tax reform. I have only submitted written evidence on the latter, which will be published later, but I'll certainly be offering comment on all these issues.<\/p>\n
In\u00a0particular\u00a0I expect to have a lot to say on the\u00a0government's\u00a0proposed\u00a0changes in the way in which tax\u00a0legislation\u00a0is developed. I have some\u00a0experience\u00a0in tax consultation processes, having spent a lot more time in the Treasury over the\u00a0last\u00a0few\u00a0years\u00a0then this blog has ever implied. And I candidly think that the\u00a0proposals\u00a0to increase consultation are anti-democratic and will result in\u00a0significant\u00a0bias in UK tax legislation.<\/p>\n
There are three reasons. First, to be consulted you need to be have the time available to take part without being paid. Only the rich and their agents can do that. Second, consultation\u00a0focusses\u00a0on the means\u00a0and not the ends of tax law - and so\u00a0distracts\u00a0from the fact that the current ends of tax reform are to reduce taxes on wealth and high income and\u00a0shift\u00a0them to the lower paid. Third, this is a democracy. Outsourcing tax thinking to the Big 4 accountants and their friends is yet another act that undermines the democratic process.<\/p>\n
So what can be done? Well, again three things. First, if there is to be consultation then it must be\u00a0broadly\u00a0representative\u00a0and\u00a0positively\u00a0seek to be so. If\u00a0necessary\u00a0that means that payment must be made to those taking part. Second, parliament must have resources to commission its own reviews of\u00a0legislation. thirdly,\u00a0consultation\u00a0must be on the ends and not just the means of tax law.<\/p>\n
Until that happens we'll get the outcome noted by EU aid coalition Eurodad in a mail they sent \u00a0me the other day:<\/p>\n
As you may know, this year the EC extended the mandate of and expert group dealing with transfer pricing matters until March 2015, the EU Joint Transfer Pricing Forum (JTPF) which:<\/p>\n
a) \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 assists and advises the European Commission on transfer pricing tax matters;<\/p>\n
b) \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0works within the framework of the OECD Transfer Pricing Guidelines.<\/p>\n
In February, DG Taxud opened a call for applications for non-governmental members for the expert group. Eurodad put forward an application (see below), however, the call for applications resulted in the selection of 16 members ALL from the private sector, including the big four. The group has one rep from each EU member state, plus 16 reps from the private sector. Affiliations for the latter are as it follows:<\/p>\n
- \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0CMS Bureau Francis Lefebvre (chairperson)<\/p>\n
- \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Volvo<\/p>\n
- \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Unilever<\/p>\n
- \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Fiat<\/p>\n
- \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0BAE Systems PLC<\/p>\n
- \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0OMV AG<\/p>\n
- \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Deloitte<\/p>\n
- \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Andersen Legal<\/p>\n
- \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Nokia<\/p>\n
- \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0GK International Tax Consulting<\/p>\n
- \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Royal Dutch Shell<\/p>\n
- \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0LVMH MoetHennessy Louis Vuitton<\/p>\n
- \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Berkshire Hathaway<\/p>\n
- \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Ernst & Young<\/p>\n
- \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0KPMG<\/p>\n
- \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0PwC<\/p>\n
- \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Sanofi-aventis<\/p>\n
For more information, click here<\/a>.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
That's not\u00a0consultation. That's law creation by business for the\u00a0benefit\u00a0of business. And at the very least that's anti-democratic, n<\/p>\n
<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n<\/span><\/p>\n<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I’m appearing before the House of Lords Economic Affairs Finance Bill sub-Committee this afternoon to respond to questions on the\u00a0government’s\u00a0new\u00a0approach\u00a0to\u00a0taxation\u00a0policy, anti-avoidance, disguised remuneration and\u00a0corporation\u00a0tax reform.
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":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9846","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-tax-management"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9846","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=9846"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9846\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9846"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9846"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9846"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}