Britain cut the corporate tax bills for some of its biggest companies by a quarter in 2013, as public concern grows about the balance between austerity spending cuts and tax breaks.
Comedian Jimmy Carr is reported to be paying HMRC £500,000 after quitting a controversial and “immoral” offshore tax-avoidance scheme.
Ireland has pledged to close the tax loophole that has allowed US technology giant Apple to hide $40 billion of its profits from taxation by funnelling income through Irish subsidiaries with no declared tax residency.
The UK’s satirical political magazine Private Eye is carrying a new special report by investigative journalist Richard Brooks (no affiliation to TJN), on how Britain has, at high speed, been turning itself into ever more of a global tax haven for multinational corporations, helping them ever more easily strip income out of taxpayers’ pockets elsewhere.
The 10-point Lough Erne communique contained 13 uses of the word ‘should’ and not a single use of the word ‘will’. Perhaps David Cameron, the UK Prime Minister, was hoping that no-one would notice the difference and that the British public anger about tax dodging would be satisfied without any actual action.