‘Make the multinationals transparent about the money they make here, how they move cash round their corporate structures, and the justification for the tax they pay, as well as their responsibilities for the kind of society we want to create’. Ed’s admirable sentiments with which the vast majority of the electorate would concur. But the […]
Posts Tagged ‘Tax avoidance’
Good stuff on curbing corporate tax avoidance, Ed, now show us the beef!
May 21st, 2013 by Michael Meacher.
How does Cameron get away with his lying pretences?
May 17th, 2013 by Michael Meacher.Banging his fist with the smack of firm government, Cameron warned the energy companies yesterday that those who engaged in oil price-fixing will face the “full force of the law”. Oh yeah? They must be quaking in their boots. Just 4 months ago when there was a huge public outcry at the surge in petrol […]
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Who appoints these State stooges?
May 10th, 2013 by Michael Meacher.In 2011 it was widely believed that Dave Hartnett, boss of HMRC, in a multi-billion offshore avoidance dispute with Vodaphone, had let off the company with some paltry payment without even consulting his lawyers. The PAC therefore instructed the National Audit Office, headed by Amyas Morse, to investigate this and 4 other dodgy deals. Before this […]
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Hypocrisy upon hypocrisy: welcome to global tax avoidance plc
Apr 27th, 2013 by Michael Meacher.The latest report from the Public Accounts Committee, published yesterday, really says it all about the tax avoiders. The head of tax for Ernst & Young, one of the UK’s Big Four accountancy firms, admitted that their accountants are seconded to government to draw up tax laws: “I think there are benefits in the work […]
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So much for clamping down on tax avoidance, they’re actively encouraging it
Jan 7th, 2013 by Michael Meacher.As Parliament prepares to debate corporate tax avoidance next Monday (7th), the charitable view is that government does the best it can, but is outmanoeuvred and outgunned by all those smart tycoons and multinationals who employ an army of accountants and lawyers to run rings round flat-footed regulators and tax inspectors who are always behind […]
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Tax avoidance ought to be as socially unacceptable as drink driving
Dec 19th, 2012 by James Bloodworth.A thug wearing a suit is still a thug, and a crime is no more acceptable when it is committed by a “respectable” member of society than when it is carried out by what the right-wing press like to think of as the criminal classes. Yet the concept of one law for all, while an […]
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Starbucks’ £20m tax ‘donation’ offer is an insult
Dec 10th, 2012 by Michael Meacher.The point about a ‘donation’ is that it is a gift freely given without obligation. What makes it worse in Starbucks’ case is that it is obviously ‘volunteered’ only because the company is fearful, with good reason, that otherwise its trade will be seriously damaged by a widespread consumer boycott, not because it accepts that […]
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Osborne’s smoke and mirrors over tax avoidance
Dec 4th, 2012 by Michael Meacher.Osborne’s Wednesday statement, when he will be forced to admit he will miss his target to be cutting debt as a share of GDP by 2015-6 and that he will be extending spending cuts to 2018, is going to be wretched. So he will try to enliven the House, and the nation, by telling us […]
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Tory party treasurer demands tax on super-rich cut to zero
Sep 27th, 2012 by Michael Meacher.In an extraordinary interview, Lord Fink, the Tory party’s treasurer, has admitted that he lobbied the government to compete with the Cayman Islands and other offshore havens, where tax rates are far lower than in Britain, by cutting taxes sharply on the mega-rich who invest in hedge funds. His motive, he likes to tell us, is to […]
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Building the tax justice consensus
Sep 20th, 2012 by Richard Murphy.For more than thirty years the politics of the UK and most other western democracies has been dominated by a notable and consistent adherence to a single consensus on tax issues. That persistent policy approach has been built around what has been described as the Washington Consensus. That agenda, which translated neoliberal thinking into policy prescriptions, […]
