Country-by-country reporting

At the core of what the Tax Justice Network campaigns for is greater transparency. With regard to multinational corporations this could be achieved by country-by-country reporting. A new Tax Justice Network briefing paper explains how, and why this is so important.

Micheal Meacher speaking on Tax Justice in the Budget debate

Michael Meacher MP spoke on tax justice in the budget debate. It’s one of the fullest speeches on the subject in the House of Commons, so I reproduce it in full:

Mr. Meacher: There was one rather odd omission from the Budget. It contained next to nothing about dealing with tax avoidance. That is quite surprising given the difficult state of the public finances-to which the hon. Gentleman rightly drew attention-the Chancellor’s obvious need to close the gap, and the current international campaign led by Germany to tackle the scandal head-on, which I consider very important.

As we know, the hole in public revenues amounts to some £40 billion. That is a large amount, and it is increasing. The Treasury forecasts that the figure will be £7 billion higher than was suggested in the October pre-Budget report. The Chancellor had every incentive to claw back tax avoided and evaded to help balance the books without raising taxes for the rest of the population.

A recent pamphlet produced by the Trades Union Congress and written by the tax accountancy expert Richard Murphy found that tax avoidance and tax planning-by which I mean fabricating plans artificially in order to pay little or no tax, a device employed by very rich individuals-now account for about £13 billion a year, while the same device employed by companies in rather different ways accounts for a further £12 billion a year. There is obviously plenty of scope for much tougher anti-avoidance measures that would benefit everyone else. If such persons can be made to pay their due and proper taxes, others will need to pay less. Moreover, Inland Revenue statistics show that those who are paid more than £100,000 a year, who constitute less than 1 per cent. of the population, now receive £8 billion in tax reliefs and allowances.

Another important factor that could well have propelled the Chancellor towards a Budget assault on tax avoidance, which I think is long overdue, is that the international atmosphere is much more conducive to tougher action that it has been for decades. Germany, as we have read, believes that it is losing nearly £25 billion a year in tax evasion by rich Germans holding anonymous trusts in Monaco and Andorra, in addition to others who, rather curiously, were outed by a whistleblower as having secreted huge sums of money in another tax haven, namely Liechtenstein. Germany is now demanding cross-national action to force countries with banking secrecy to share information. That is a favourable climate for the UK to participate and take the lead.

Since there is considerable evidence that super-rich British people also use these and other tax havens-notably the Cayman Islands-for the same purpose, a crackdown on those avoiding their tax responsibilities could produce big benefits for the UK Treasury and, my goodness, there has never been a time when the UK Treasury needed big benefits as it does now.

Why was that not done in the Budget? I suspect the reason is the stranglehold exerted by the City on the Government-particularly on the Prime Minister, I have to say-who have been persuaded that the financial enclave of the City of London is central to the economic interests of the UK as a whole. I submit that of course it has an important role, which I would not downplay for a moment, but the idea that it is central to the UK economy is quite another proposition.

By bending over backwards to encourage hedge funds and private equity firms through the most egregious tax liberality-I refer to the absurdly low 18 per cent. basic tax rate on income from the carry, or share, of the gains on these massive deals, which is less than half the income tax rate payable by top earners-and as a result of other measures, the Government have in effect turned the UK, or more specifically the City of London, into a gigantic tax haven for the internationally mobile business élite. The problem is that, by sucking talent and capital from other parts of the economy, the remarkable successes over the past 10 years, which I am the first to praise, have been bought at a very high price-I would say too high a price.

As the credit crunch is now exposing, City profits on invisibles cannot and never could compensate for the steady, continuing decline of Britain as a manufacturing nation-and that is the basis of wealth for all industrial countries. The volatility and excesses of the finance sector are outweighed by the 1 million jobs lost in manufacturing over the past decade, the stagnant industrial output, the £7 billion-a-month trade deficit, and the weakness of manufacturing investment and of the so-called knowledge economy-R and D-which is confined to a very few sectors. Those also have to be taken into account. My point is not that the City of London does not have a key role, but that it cannot be allowed to exploit that role at the expense of reducing the capability of Britain as a sustainable industrial base.

Even when other countries have recently made what can only be regarded as a very serious effort to counteract some of these excesses in tax avoidance, the UK has taken a lead in blocking them. The UK has for example regularly refused to allow the deduction of tax from interest payments within the EU, which would hugely restrict the effectiveness of tax havens because the basic rate of tax-presumably about 20 per cent.-would already have been deducted from the income before it reached the tax haven. There can be little doubt that this withholding tax proposal of the EU was stymied in order to preserve the UK as a tax haven, given the City of London links to the overseas protectorates and Crown dependencies.

If I may I shall give just one more example of what I think is an industrial and financial way of life that is not sustainable. Maintaining fiscal independence from Europe may be a populist move-clearly it is in this country-but in reality it enables the international corporations to play the EU and other countries off against each other in constantly bargaining for lower tax rates.

The credit crunch and the approaching downturn, which some people, even today, believe may have very serious consequences, show that a different approach is now necessary. Not only is closer regulation of the financial markets clearly now imperative to prevent future damage to the international economy-the precipitate collapse of Bear Stearns is clearly not the last of it-but the UK in particular can no longer afford either the prohibitive cost of the tax privileges of the City or, just as importantly, the collateral manufacturing damage inflicted on Britain as an industrial nation. [ Interruption. ] Before the hon. Member for Runnymede and Weybridge (Mr. Hammond) gets carried away, let me remind him that Winston Churchill, as Chancellor in 1925, said that he would rather see industry with head held high and finance less proud. He was absolutely right, and that applies just as much now.

In particular we need a fundamental change in the tax culture in this country so that corporations and super-rich individuals no longer regard it as a duty-as we learned from Tesco in the press a few weeks ago-to minimise tax by any artificial devices that can be dreamed up to secure private gain. It is surely, by contrast, a responsibility that they make a fair contribution to the overall public gain of which they are a part.

There are several ways to achieve that. Obviously a key one is to seek to eliminate tax haven abuse. The non-governmental organisation Tax Justice Network calculates that the total assets now held by the wealthiest people in the world in tax havens amounts to a staggering $11.5 trillion, at a potential cost to world Governments in tax forgone of about $255 billion. To put that in context, the money lost to Governments worldwide is more than two and a half times total global aid flows last year.

Mr. Prisk: The right hon. Gentleman is talking about the amounts that high net-worth individuals have, which he says are lost to Government. How would he comment on the contributions of people such as Bill Gates, who give a huge proportion of their income to the very aid that he is trying to support? Governments do not have to do that on their own; individuals can contribute to it.

Mr. Meacher: That is fine. I know that some of the richest people such as Gates, Warren Buffett and, to some extent, Richard Branson have made substantial contributions, which is extraordinarily creditable, but that is not an argument for saying that very wealthy individuals should not pay their full, proper and due tax.

In the UK alone, the tax amnesty for those holding accounts with the offshore branches of some UK high street banks in the main Crown dependencies-I am thinking of Jersey, Guernsey and the Isle of Man-is expected by the Treasury to yield a recovery of about half a billion pounds in tax from just 60,000 people, or 0.1 per cent of the population, who admit to undeclared income in these places. That shows the sheer scale at present, and it is unacceptable.

I am not against amnesties; I understand why we have had one now, and I think it is succeeding. Instead of just having occasional amnesties, however, all UK dependencies and protectorates-particularly the Cayman Islands-should now be required to use the same standards of disclosure and accountability as the UK itself. The UK standard should also be tightened by requiring all UK-registered companies to report annually on all their overseas subsidiaries, including their revenues and how many people are employed. If we were to introduce that transparency, it would dramatically improve the prospect of fair and balanced tax collection, and I intend to table an amendment to the Finance Bill to that effect-if the Government do not do that first. [Interruption.] Yes, I think that that is unlikely, which is why some of us need to assist and nudge an arm or two.

There are several other ways of dealing more effectively with tax avoidance and evasion. We should look at the tax reliefs and allowances that accrue to those earning over £100,000 a year-the richest 1 per cent. of the population. One might ask: what is the justification for enhancing by means of tax reliefs an already enormous salary, when that will mean that others will have to pay more to compensate?

Mr. Love: I agree with many of my right hon. Friend’s points, although I must say that we ought not to set manufacturing and finance in competition with each other; both must flourish within our economy. How does he respond to the classic argument that is made against his case for proper taxation of the wealthy, which is that they are so mobile that they will simply move outside the jurisdiction of the UK authorities?

Mr. Meacher: I shall come on to that. [Interruption.] I know that many Members say that when they might not intend to do so, but I do intend to-in the brief time that I have left.

I was talking about how we might deal with offshoring, and I also wish to talk about the domicile rule. Frankly, it is indefensible. If it were abolished, that would recoup more than £4 billion in lost taxation. Abolition might not be the answer, but there should certainly be a considerable reduction in its application. As for so-called capital gains on all assets held for less than a year, they are clearly not capital gains but a form of income, and they should be treated as such and be subject to income tax. That would save about half a billion pounds in otherwise lost tax. Also, the tax authorities should make it absolutely clear that they are deadly serious. The UK should co-operate with other countries, particularly in Europe, to ensure that tax is paid where the taxable economic activity occurred. That would largely stop misallocation of profit to tax havens.

More complex tax avoidance should be tackled by enshrining in law the general principle that wherever an otherwise commercial transaction is added to any arrangement the sole or main purpose of which is to reduce tax liability, Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs should disregard the artificial addition and tax the transaction accordingly. Counter-productively, HMRC is being run down by 25 per cent. in the five years to 2010. In order that corporations and super-rich individuals understand that tax avoidance does not pay, it should instead be built up substantially, as the Treasury calculates that each member of HMRC staff recovers 96 times their full cost of employment.

Artificial tax avoidance and tax evasion are a cancer on the body politic. Economically, this is the best time for decades to launch a systematic campaign to eradicate that, and I look to the Treasury to set it in place.

BIG TROUBLE ON TREASURE ISLAND

It was good to celebrate my 50th birthday this morning reading an excellent article in the Guardian with the above title. As the sub-title said:

Jersey’s status as a tax haven has made it one of the richest places on Earth. But there is a widening gulf between the millionaires of the financial sector and locals struggling with low wages and rising prices. As Jon Henley reports, the backlash is growing.

It’s a privilege to help those fighting this injustice.

The awareness of the criminality of Jersey and its ilk is also growing. As The Times reports today:

Britain should tighten controls on the gambling industry and monitor the activities of wealthy foreigners to combat money laundering, according to a report by the US State Department. The annual International Narcotics Control Strategy Report identified Britain as “a jurisdiction of primary concern” and said that despite improved anti-money-laundering laws and regulations, at least £15 billion of criminal profits is processed through Britain each year.

According to the US, Britain is a favourite place for money launderers, alongside Afghanistan, the Cayman Islands, Cyprus, Liechtenstein, Pakistan and the United Arab Emirates.

The report also names Guernsey, Jersey and the Isle of Man as money-laundering destinations.

They are.

Who are the Taxpayer’s Alliance?

The Guardian carried an article under this title this morning. The question is a good one. Especially as they are specifically contrasted with the Tax Justice Network, to whom I am an adviser.

The answer is raised in a media context: how do they get so much publicity. They claim the answer is:

“We are always available 24 hours a day,” says [chief executive] Elliott. “We put the work in so we get good coverage.”

Actually, I don’t buy that. Lot’s of people are available 24 hours a day and don’t get as much coverage. TJN, for start, even though we (unlike the TPA) actually try to provide considered analysis and real research on stories.

The reason why the TPA get coverage is much easier to explain. Take chairman Andrew Allum’s profile for a start. As he says:

He left the [Conservative] party in 2003, having lost faith that it represented his brand of free market, individualist and compassionate politics.

Put it another way: he moved further Right than the right wing of the Tories. He moved out of the political mainstream and into the Neo-Con, libertarian hinterlands. He gave up analysis at that time. He took up government bashing (by which I mean, all government, not just the government of the moment) and that covered his anti-tax agenda (I mean all tax, not particular tax).

And we have a media that supports this view; laps it up and feeds it as objective comment to the British public. Just look at the Sunday Times budget supplement yesterday, which featured on ’stealth taxes’ and actually quoted a women claiming she was questioning the value of her £16,000 a year job because she was going to suffer a £27 tax increase this coming year.

This is crass reporting. The story is complete rubbish. She simply won’t notice the difference. Her family as a whole will be £88 a year worse off (but I note increases in child allowance weren’t taken into account, so that probably overstates the case) but the media wanted to find an anti-tax story. The Tax Payer’s Alliance pedals them this sort of nonsensical yarn knowing that no-one will ever act on what they say. Which is precisely why the Tories said yesterday that there were no grounds for cutting taxes.

Unlike the TPA, the TJN works in the real world. We talk to real politicians, from the Conservatives, Lib Dems and across the Labour perspective. We do not deal outside the limits of credibility. But facing real issues makes it so much harder to get coverage.

But I’ll trade fewer press reports for credibility any day, and there is no one of any credibility in government or opposition in our parliament who takes the TPA seriously. Thankfully.