Financial Transparency Coalition

I have the following article in the latest edition of the London Review of Books:

In his budget last month George Osborne announced that if in the future a UK company runs its internal banking arrangements through a tax haven subsidiary it will benefit from a special tax rate of just 5.75 per cent of the resulting profits. The rate is exceptionally low: the same activity undertaken in the UK is taxed at 23 per cent. It is a change that will delight corporate tax avoiders everywhere: the UK will now condone the use of tax havens in locations such as...

It’s an interesting moment of flux for Task Force issues, especially if you’re sitting in London. On the one hand, you can see a key piece of UK legislation on financial integrity at serious risk; on the other hand, you can see the potential for a powerful step forward at the European level. Both are still in the balance, so if you’ve got any political pull at all – now’s the time to choose. The nature of both discussions points to a broader point, however, which is this: national- or regional-level responses to financial integrity issues will always risk a...

I’ve read the government’s new anti-avoidance strategy for tax. It’s not a good read. For that reason I think a  translation is needed. First of all, as I’ve already noted, the  government has a massive problem in agreeing how big this issue is. That does not help them politically, and undermines much of the forward. Whatever the issue then is, the strategy is laid out in four parts, each being allocated a chapter in their paper. Chapter one says there is a strategy. It’s a little hard to work out what it is due to use of a weird graphic, but...

I have the following comment on the Guardian site this afternoon: George Osborne said this was a budget to tackle avoidance. How wrong he was. Lawyers and accountants all over the country must be jumping for joy this afternoon – unless they’re in the Channel Islands. Employee benefit trusts – often based in Jersey – are going to be hit hard by this budget, and rightly so. These are last remnants of the age-old pursuit of avoiding PAYE. If they’re consigned to history Osborne’s done at least one thing right. And Osborne gets full marks* for tackling another abuse long overdue to...