Corporate Tax evasion

20Cent

It was in the papers this week that Google only pay 2.5% tax by using loopholes and tax havens like Bermuda (and Ireland). Our generous 12.5% is abused and is too much for these companies they avoid paying their fair share. When billions are being cut from budgets all over Europe there is little being done to address this. The old and the sick are being told to "share the pain", why not these corporations also?

Fair play to these lot bringing attention to this.


The video is of a Flash Mob protest at Vodafone in London

Vodafone closed its Oxford Street store in the face of protesters angry that the firm has been let off a potential £6bn tax bill amid deep welfare cuts.
Vodafone has confirmed the shop will remain shut until it is safe to open it again.
However, it disputes not paying a £6bn tax bill.
The firm said that it had been in negotiations with HM Revenue and Customs regarding a tax assessment, but did not know where the £6bn figure had come from.
In July Vodafone agreed to pay HMRC £1.2bn to settle a long-running dispute, despite having put aside £2.2bn to cover it.
The HMRC bill related to so-called Controlled Foreign Companies (CFC) liabilities, which applies to firms that are controlled by UK residents but which pay tax on their earnings abroad at a lower rate.
Protesters demonstrated outside the flagship store with banners branding the company 'tax dodgers' and urging the company to 'Pay your taxes, save our welfare state'.
Protesters used Twitter to upload pictures and spread word of the demonstration.
Last month, HM Revenue & Customs allowed the phone giant to avoid paying vast amounts of tax on profits racked up by a subsidiary based in a tax haven.

PanchoVilla

If the British government allows Vodafone to get away with this, I can only imagine what the Irish government has allowed corporations to get away with in this country.

oppenheimer1

Its tax avoidance not evasion.

Eliot Rosewater

20Cent wrote: »

The old and the sick are being told to "share the pain", why not these corporations also?

The old age pension has established itself as the most sacred cow in all of Ireland, and has not been affected by the recession, so I'm afraid your rhetoric falls short of reality.

If we were to raise the Corporation Tax level, what negative effects would that have? How many companies would simply leave? Paradoxically, how many more spending cuts would those companies leaving require us to make?

20Cent

Eliot Rosewater wrote: »

The old age pension has established itself as the most sacred cow in all of Ireland, and has not been affected by the recession, so I'm afraid your rhetoric falls short of reality.

If we were to raise the Corporation Tax level, what negative effects would that have? How many companies would simply leave? Paradoxically, how many more spending cuts would those companies leaving require us to make?

You think Vodafone would just pull out of the UK market because they have to pay a few % more tax?

Pensions were an agreement made to people can't just be torn up. Doubt many pensioners are sending their money to a mail box in a tax haven to avoid paying tax.

20Cent

oppenheimer1 wrote: »

Its tax avoidance not evasion.

Most people don't have the option to "avoid" tax. If Joe Soap tells the taxman that he ends up in jail. A multinational making billions gets a discount.

Rabble Rabble

20Cent wrote: »

You think Vodafone would just pull out of the UK market because they have to pay a few % more tax?

yes

Pensions were an agreement made to people can't just be torn up. Doubt many pensioners are sending their money to a mail box in a tax haven to avoid paying tax.

old is not poor. they may well be.

Scofflaw

20Cent wrote: »

You think Vodafone would just pull out of the UK market because they have to pay a few % more tax?

Pensions were an agreement made to people can't just be torn up. Doubt many pensioners are sending their money to a mail box in a tax haven to avoid paying tax.

Vodafone are operating in the UK market because it's a lucrative market. The FDI companies are based here because they can avail of our tax rates and tax-avoidance structures like the "Double Irish" while accessing EU markets. They're not here because we're a lucrative market to be in, so the same logic doesn't apply in the two cases.

regards,
Scofflaw

Eliot Rosewater

20Cent wrote: »

You think Vodafone would just pull out of the UK market because they have to pay a few % more tax?

You did say in your opening post "our generous 12.5% is abused and is too much for these companies they avoid paying their fair share" so I assumed you we're having this discussion within the context of Ireland too.

20Cent wrote: »

Pensions were an agreement made to people can't just be torn up. Doubt many pensioners are sending their money to a mail box in a tax haven to avoid paying tax.

That's not the point. In your opening post you said that old age pensioners were "sharing the pain", or at least being asked to. In Ireland they're simply not.

ei.sdraob

20Cent wrote: »

Most people don't have the option to "avoid" tax. If Joe Soap tells the taxman that he ends up in jail. A multinational making billions gets a discount.

I mentioned before, if you want change get few thousand people and businesses in the locations where by-elections are overdue, to not pay taxes (where possible) such as income, VAT etc

and watch the **** hit the fan and the government fall apart.

no taxation without representation

oppenheimer1

20Cent wrote: »

Most people don't have the option to "avoid" tax. If Joe Soap tells the taxman that he ends up in jail. A multinational making billions gets a discount.

Actually they do. Tax credits are a way every worker avoids tax. Just because they are universal doesn't make them any less of a tax avoidance measure.

If we scrap our corporate advantage, most of those big companies will pack up and move to places with a less or equally onerous tax regime that has better infrastructure and a more central location.

20Cent

Eliot Rosewater wrote: »

You did say in your opening post "our generous 12.5% is abused and is too much for these companies they avoid paying their fair share" so I assumed you we're having this discussion within the context of Ireland too.



That's not the point. In your opening post you said that old age pensioners were "sharing the pain", or at least being asked to. In Ireland they're simply not.

I don't think Vodafone would just up and leave Ireland because they had to pay a few percent more tax. Re the pensioners we don't know if they will be cut or not yet. Saw one headline today saying they would.