Corruption in Greece? [url=http://www.transparency.org/cpi2014/resultsSurely not.[/url

Officially joint most corrupt in Western Europe/the EU, alongside Romania, Bulgaria and Italy. Illustrious company indeed. When you're down there with the Italians you're definitely up to no good.

Seems to work well enougyh in the US, it's 35% there

Corruption is endemic within human society. There isn't some magical force-field which prevents it from leaking out of Greece.

Further to my earlier comments on multi-nationals avoiding paying UK tax. Would any of the advocates of free and unfettered capitalism care to comment on the ethics of this?

[iThat this House regrets that corporate tax avoidance costs the UK Exchequer billions annually, and that several international companies have been largely responsible; is dismayed to learn from the report Alliance Boots and the Need for Corporate Tax Reform, published by Unite/War On Want/Change to Win, that Alliance Boots, an ostensibly British company, has lawfully avoided more than £1 billion in corporate taxes since 2007 when it entered private ownership in the largest leveraged buyout in UK corporate history, following which the company reincorporated in the tax haven of Zug, Switzerland, where it earns no revenue, and is controlled by entities in Luxembourg, Gibraltar and the Cayman Islands; is concerned that it avoided taxes by loading most of the £9 billion buyout debt onto the highly profitable UK business, thus shifting profits abroad; notes that Alliance Boots significantly lowered its UK tax bill while deriving an estimated 40 per cent of its revenue from UK taxpayers, primarily via NHS prescriptions; further notes that Alliance Boots is seeking to increase its taxpayer-financed profits on the back of NHS privatisation; and calls on Alliance Boots to fully disclose its profits and taxes for all countries where it has significant revenue, on HM Revenue and Customs to comprehensively investigate Alliance Boots' tax practices, and on the Government to modernise the taxation of private-equity and heavily debt-financed businesses, and to require companies to disclose significant revenues that are derived from public sector contracts, and to reform the financial and taxation regulations in British Overseas Territories.[/i

We have a government who are quite happy with that arrangement

I think it's a mistake to assume they are happy with it. The truth is they don't have any choice. Or they won't be in government.

I may be growing rose-tinted eyes in my dotage but I have a gut feeling that there is an underswell of discontent with the status quo. This movement will not recognise national barriers, the only thing that may hinder it is various governments' attempts to introduce a "snoopers' charter". But hinder it is all it will do, it won't stop it.

Slowly, but surely, the rose tinted spectacles and blinkers are becoming an out of date fashion accessory for so many.

I wonder what the new season my bring?

We live in interesting times.

That doesn't make any sense for the likes of Starbucks to pay CT at 35% on profits in the UK when it could pay CT at a much lower rate.

There has been much written about Apple and its tax avoidance strategy - perhaps all is not so great in US.

20% isn't preventing the likes of Vodafone and others paying, although it doesn't help when the likes of Brown bring in legislation to stop them paying tax on asset sales either.

The government should make sure its money is spent with companies that do pay their share, your example of Boots is a good one. Just make sure prescriptions are not valid at Boots. Government departments cannot get mobile phones from Vodafone etc.

The alternative being: transparent country-by-country reporting and paying taxes in the country the revenues (and profits) are generated.

HMRC should be allowed to present an estimated bill and then it would be up to the company to dispute the figure. It might go against natural justice (innocent until proven guilty) but it is the way HMRC currently operates with individuals and SMEs

Your first point would require an agreed method of allocating HO costs - Apple sell product via a website in the UK which is maintained and developed in the US where do the costs sit? This is one of the issues with Starbucks I think - the huge management charges applied by the US on its UK operation.

It would be easy to project a profit for Starbucks just compare their trading figures i.e. Sales less coffee, less labour to the likes of Costa etc and you will not be far wrong. Rent and rates should be easy they all seem to be on the same streets.

You see this is precisely why they should just get a whopping great tax assessment and be obliged to pay it, same as would happen to typical UK businesses or taxpayers. With full appeal rights of course. the reason? Why, that simple starting proposition is that, if the "huge charges" or "licence fees" or whatever are not just a scam via associated companies, then why TF would a company invest millions in starting and continuing to operate and expand a gigantic UK business which never makes a profit? Occam declares this to be transparent bullcrap.

If, really, they do go to all this huge trouble in the UK despite never making a bean taxable profit, then I'm sure they'd be easily able to convince the authorities on appeal against their assessment.

I have no problem whatsoever with eg Starbucks paying a trillion in annual licence fees to Starbucks SARL (or whatever) to use the Starbucks name. So far as their accounts are concerned they can do what the hell they like. It's just that that payment, being the most obvious scam, simply shouldn't be allowed as a legitimate business expense for tax purposes. More to the point, while i'm no expert, I'm pretty damn sure it isn't, but so far as I can see, successive governments have never challenged these sort of scams in any way. They are therefore being allowed to sail through by a curious and totally unacceptable default.

What annoys me, and many others, is that the Luxembourg etc scams are so blatant and so [iobviously[/i a scam, that surely the only reason they get away with it is because the government is determined that they can, or has absolutely zero appetite to make sure that they can't.

There is no rate at which you can set it at that would encourage a company that can pay zero CT to start paying it. Why if you pay zero CT now, would you start paying it if the rate was set at 10% or whatever? Surely you would be taken to task by your shareholders for voluntary coughing up 10% of your profit when you didn't need to?

There is really only one solution which is to close the loopholes and have the companies pay whatever rate you deem fair. Trying to second guess what they would pay is simply a race to the bottom as that rate is bound to be 0% given the choice.