Financial Transparency Coalition

LONDON - Christian Aid today welcomed a House of Commons committee’s report on tax dodging by multinationals, which puts morality at the heart of the tax debate, and said the harm the practice causes to developing countries should be seen in the same light.

George Osborne says that 'those who evade taxes, like benefit cheats, are leeches on society'. However, he has agreed a deal that rewards those who avoid paying taxes in the UK by hiding their money in Switzerland. George Osborne says: 'my message to those who try to hide their incomes from the Revenue in offshore bank accounts and false declarations is simple: we will find you and your money.' A senior official at the Indian Central Board of Direct Taxes says: 'money laundering or illegal commission are a criminal offence. So, our effort will be to not...

People only form companies for economic reasons. There really is no other reason to have one. Despite that just one in three companies in the UK pay tax. The data is based on the year to March 2010. All the details on how I got the data is in a report here. The facts are:

a)     There were about 2.6 million companies on the Register throughout most of that year.

b)     Of these about 500,000 claimed to be dormant.

c)     That leaves 2.1 million potentially taxable.

d)     But I guessed at least 180,000 of the...

The Sunday Times did an expose of Google’s tax affairs Sunday. I’ll declare an interest: they asked me to help the investigation, and I did. The findings? Google has avoided £3 billion of tax worldwide over the last five years. It’s tax rate outside the USA is just 3%. In 2009, if Google had declared profits in proportion to sales in the UK in the ratio that the worldwide accounts showed (about 35% profit pre tax) then the expected UK tax bill would have been about £190 million.