The Amazon Tax-Cut

4th March 2021 by George Turner

Coming in at an enormous £12bn for 2021/22, the Chancellor’s announcement of a “super-deduction” on purchases of capital goods by businesses was one of the largest spending items in the Spring Budget. In fact, it was one of the largest single-year tax giveaways ever enacted by a government. According to the Office of Budget Responsibility’s policy costings database, you have to go back to the 2007 Budget when the basic rate of income tax was cut to 20% to find a tax change of a size comparable to the super-deduction.

With such a significant policy change we are asking how the proceeds of this tax cut will be distributed. Initial analysis by TaxWatch demonstrates that a company like Amazon UK Services would have their tax bill entirely wiped out by the new rules. The tax cut may also be a boon to capital intensive sectors such as infrastructure that have largely been protected from the worst impacts of the pandemic and that are required to spend large amounts on capital goods regardless of the incentives available to them.

Super expensing

Under the plans announced by the Chancellor, companies will be able to deduct 130% of the cost of “main rate” assets – more than the cost of the equipment itself – from their taxable profits in the year that they purchase it. This reduces substantially the amount of tax payable in the year the deduction is made. Main rate assets are defined as “plant and machinery” by HMRC, which has a broader meaning than is found in corporate accounts. It includes “items you keep to use in your business, including cars”, some fixtures and fittings and the demolition of existing plant and machinery.

Under normal accounting rules companies deduct a percentage of these costs in each year, so the cost is spread over several years.

The full expensing of capital expenditure (i.e. a 100% deduction on capital expenses in year one), has been a long term policy ask for some sectors and promoted by a number of think tanks and lobby groups in recent years.1

Who benefits from super expensing?

Super-expensing is a policy that overwhelmingly benefits larger businesses, because the UK already has a full expensing regime for smaller capital expenditures called the “annual investment allowance”. This was raised temporarily to £1m in 2020, but is usually £200,000.

The benefits of the expensing is also differentiated across sectors because companies in different sectors use and spend capital in different ways. For example, a factory will buy much more plant and machinery than a management consultancy firm where staff costs make up a higher proportion of the total costs of the firm. According to HMRC figures on capital allowances, the sectors with the largest capital allowances are manufacturing, retail, and information and communication. These three sectors accounted for a third of all capital expenditure in the country in 2017-2018, the last year when figures are available.

Sector	Gross trading profit (£m)	Capital allowances claimed (£m)
Manufacturing	42,151	14,430
Wholesale and Retail Trade, Repairs	53,582	11,476
Information and Communication	38,634	10,463

Table 1: Capital allowance claims by sector (Source: HMRC Corporation Tax Statistics 2020)

Many sectors that are big spenders on capital goods will have been largely sheltered from the worst impacts of the pandemic. For example, energy utilities, water companies, supermarkets and logistics companies which have all continued to provide essential services have large capital expenses. Think of all of the delivery trucks that have been bought over the last year.

However, there are industries that have been seriously impacted by the pandemic that also have high capital expenditure, for example, the airline industry. The impact on the retail sector of the pandemic has been highly differentiated between “non-essential” and “essential” retail.

Supercharging super-expensing

Multinational companies have a particular opportunity to take advantage of the new capital expensing rules. Profit shifting is the practice where profits are removed from the UK by a multinational company which in turn reduces their UK tax liability. However, many multinationals that engage in profit shifting still have significant costs in the UK. If a multinational company has significant capital expenditure in the UK it will be able to claim the new capital allowances reducing its already minimal profits and perhaps extinguishing its tax bill altogether.

For an example of how this works see our report on Netflix, which described how the company has managed to claim tax credits on its film production costs whilst moving revenues overseas.

Amazon

Amazon is a prime example of a company which has benefited from the pandemic. The company provides a direct to home delivery service at a time when shops have been forced to close and people have remained indoors. As a result, the company has seen its sales explode by 50% as a result of Covid-19.

It also spends significant amounts of money on capital goods, including lorries, vans, and warehouses.

Amazon’s European operations are based in Luxembourg, and it is not known how much in corporation tax that company pays in the UK. It is more than possible it pays nothing in corporation tax all in the UK, as the company has a net tax credit position. Amazon are also keen to stress that they do pay other taxes in the UK such as business rates and employment taxes. None of these would be impacted by the new super-deduction.

Amazon UK Services Limited, the UK service company that provides warehousing and delivery services for Amazon’s UK operations, made pre-tax profits of £102m in 2019 and had a corporation tax liability of £6.3m, largely due to the way some employees are paid in shares. According to the accounts of the company they also spent £66.8m on plant and machinery, £80.4m on office equipment, and £15.3m on computer equipment in the same year. If expensed at 130%, this would entirely wipe out the taxable profits of the company before any deductions for staff pay awards.

Amazon UK Services Ltd
	2019	2018	Total
Turnover	£2,959,248,000	£2,345,057,000	£5,304,305,000
Profit before Tax	£101,941,000	£75,381,000	£177,322,000
Tax	-£6,328,000	-£1,060,000	-£7,388,000
Profit for the year	£95,613,000	£74,321,000	£169,934,000
Tangible Assets – Additions
Plant and machinery	£66,875,000	£196,930,000	£263,805,000
Office Equipment	£80,421,000	£30,805,000	£111,226,000
Computer Equipment	£15,346,000	£10,574,000	£25,920,000
Total	£162,642,000	£238,309,000	£400,951,000
130% of Total	£211,434,600	£309,801,700	£521,236,300

Logistics companies

Amazon is not the only company that has profited from the pandemic. The logistics sector has seen revenues increased with more parcels moving around the country. The data below shows that companies like DPD and Hermes would be able to make substantial reductions in their pre-tax profits over the next two years due to to the super-deduction if 2019 levels of capital expenditure were maintained or increased.

DPDGROUP UK Ltd
	2019	2018	Total
Turnover	£1,028,134,000	£972,811,000	£2,000,945,000
Profit before Tax	£135,093,000	£142,472,000	£277,565,000
Tax	-£23,659,000	-£24,336,000	-£47,995,000
Profit for the year	£111,434,000	£118,136,000	£229,570,000
Tangible Assets – Additions
Plant and machinery	£11,424,000	£2,309,000	£13,733,000
Motor Vehicles	£29,739,000	£217,000	£29,956,000
Office equipment	£2,252,000	£1,121,000	£3,373,000
Computer equipment	£3,248,000	£3,515,000	£6,763,000
Total	£43,415,000	£3,647,000	£47,062,000
130% of Total	£56,439,500	£4,741,100	£61,180,600

Hermes Parcelnet Limited
	2020	2019	Total
Turnover	£860,037,000	£749,457,000	£1,609,494,000
Profit before Tax	£46,213,000	£36,092,000	£82,305,000
Tax	-£8,142,000	-£6,789,000	-£14,931,000
Profit for the year	£38,071,000	£29,303,000	£67,374,000
Tangible Assets – Additions
Plant and equipment	£12,469,000	£13,861,000	£26,330,000
130% of Total	£16,209,700	£18,019,300	£34,229,000

Energy and infrastructure

Energy companies need to make huge investments in capital every year in order to keep the lights on. Many of these investments are not discretionary and therefore would be be made regardless of any incentives available. To the extent that super-expensing rewards companies for investments they would have made anyway then the policy represents a cash giveaway with little benefit to the public.

To illustrate the point, we took a look at National Grid, which runs the UK’s electricity grid. The company makes enormous investments in plant an equipment every year, which will now qualify for super-expensing.

National Grid
	2020	2019	Total
Turnover	£14,540,000,000	£14,933,000,000	£29,473,000,000
Profit before Tax	£1,754,000,000	£1,841,000,000	£3,595,000,000
Tax	-£480,000,000	£339,000,000	-£141,000,000
Profit for the year	£1,265,000,000	£1,502,000,000	£2,767,000,000
Purchases of plant property and equipment
Plant and equipment	£4,583,000,000	£3,635,000,000	£8,218,000,000
130% of Total	£5,957,900,000	£4,725,500,000	£10,683,400,000

Deferred taxation

It should be noted that increasing first year capital allowances is not all a one way street. Although the new rules will allow companies to write off the full cost and more of capital purchases in the year in which the expense is made for tax purposes, companies will not make the same deduction for accounting purposes. Instead the cost of these items will be expensed gradually over time.

Because the expense will have already been claimed against tax, then it will not be expensed again when the company deducts the expense from accounting profits in future years. This will lead to an appearance of higher tax rates in future years as items are depreciated, profits decreased and no future deduction is made for depreciation against tax.

However, this is the result of a timing difference and does not change the fact that companies will be able to deduct more from their taxable profits than they actually spend on capital goods.

Avoidance

Capital allowances have often been the target of avoidance schemes in the past, with banks seeking to use financial engineering to transfer capital allowances between companies to gain a tax benefit (see for example the case of Barclay’s Mercantile vs Mawson (Inspector of Taxes). It is therefore important that HMRC keep a close watch on the growth of any avoidance schemes resulting from the announcement in the Spring Budget.

Conclusions

The policy of super-expensing represents a huge cash giveaway to some large businesses operating in the UK. Although there will undoubtedly be some companies which need the support to help them recover from the pandemic, the relief is untargeted and will result in a substantial tax cut for companies which have done well throughout the Covid-19 crisis.

It will also benefit companies who were planning to make capital expenditure regardless of the incentives available, and potentially super-charge tax avoidance schemes which seek to exploit the new benefit.

As such, it is debatable whether this is the best use of public money to stimulate post pandemic recovery.

This research was featured in The Financial Times, The Guardian, and The Times, among others. It was also quoted in the House of Commons.

Photo by Bryan Angelo on Unsplash

1 See for example the Adam Smith Institute’s campaign against the so-called “factory tax” https://www.adamsmith.org/about-factory-tax

Comparing the prosecution of tax crime with benefits crime

19th February 2021 by George Turner

A new report from TaxWatch: “Equality before the law? HMRC’s use of criminal prosecutions for tax fraud and other revenue crimes. A comparison with benefits fraud”, reveals the huge disparity between the way in which benefits crime is treated in the UK when compared to tax crime.

The report finds that between 2009 and 2019 the UK prosecuted 23 times more people for benefits offences than tax offences. This is despite the value of tax fraud being nine times higher than benefits fraud.

The research further reveals that:

The DWP employs 3.5x more staff in compliance than HMRC (adjusted for size of tax and benefits gaps)
Over the past 11 years there have been 86,000 criminal prosecutions for benefits crimes, compared to 3,665 prosecutions for tax crime
8.5x more suspended or immediate custodial sentences have been handed down for benefits crime vs tax crime over the last 11 years
The number of criminal prosecutions relating to tax crime of all kinds have decreased by 39% since 2015
HMRC has improved its focus on serious and complex tax crime, with the number of investigations in this area increasing from 50 to 400 between 2015 and 2020

HMRC told TaxWatch that since the launch of its Fraud Investigation Service in 2016, it has “launched over 76,000 civil cases and more than 4,000 criminal investigations”.

According to the latest DWP annual report, the agency concluded 46,000 fraud investigations and referred 2,000 cases for criminal prosecution in one year.

The full report can be seen here, or downloaded in pdf format here.

What gets measured gets done?

14th January 2021 by George Turner

Following the 2008 financial crisis and a series of high profile scandals, the issue of tax avoidance and evasion was brought to the fore of public concern. There has been a concerted effort to tackle this on both a domestic and an international level.

HMRC has adopted “the need to bear down on avoidance” as a primary objective, with the government seeking to promote action taken in this area.

In our latest report, we ask whether the current metrics used by HMRC are sufficiently robust to allow Parliament and other interested parties to hold the government to account on this important issue. We found that while the intent to do more is there, the question as to whether progress is measured using appropriate benchmarks is one worth exploring.

This report was presented in December 2020 to The Tax Administration Research Centre at the University of Exeter Business School.

The report is available in full here.

A PDF of this report is available here.

Photo by StellrWeb on Unsplash

HMRC opens criminal investigations into transfer pricing schemes – Comment

11th January 2021 by George Turner

As reported in the Financial Times today, HMRC has opened a number of criminal investigations into fraud following enquiries into transfer pricing schemes used by large corporations.1

News of this new approach first emerged in response to a question I posed to Simon York, HMRC’s Chief Investigations Officer. Mr York and I were speaking on a panel on tax fraud at the Hansuke Financial Services Tax Conference in November 2020. You can see my full remarks to the conference here.

During the Q&A session I noted that prosecutions of large corporates for tax fraud in the UK were non-existent, but raised the issue of whether or not HMRC should pursue individuals working within large organisations for their role in committing tax fraud. Mr York responded as follows:

“We currently have live investigations involving some very large corporates where individuals within those companies have lied to us in the context of a discussion. So lets say, a large organisation is talking to us about transfer pricing, and that is as typical a civil tax discussion, but in the course of that some false documents are provided or lies told, then absolutely we would go down the criminal route there in relation to those individuals no matter how senior they are.”

HMRC later confirmed this to the FT confirming that a “small percentage” of large businesses are currently under criminal investigation, with the first investigation having been opened in 2018. The department went onto say:

“HMRC is investigating arrangements which divert profits to establish what is really happening in the UK and overseas. Most of these investigations are resolved by the business agreeing to change its transfer pricing and pay additional corporation tax. However, where there is evidence of dishonesty then, as in all dishonesty cases, we will consider opening a criminal investigation.”

The point made that HMRC will always “consider” a criminal investigation derives from HMRC’s criminal investigations policy, which says that HMRC will “consider” opening a criminal investigation in a number of circumstances where the department has found fraud, including in cases where reliance is placed on false documentation, or material facts are misrepresented as part of a tax avoidance scheme, or where the person suspected of fraud “holds a position of trust or responsibility”.2

To “consider” of course does not mean that HMRC will open an investigation. As we have pointed out before, HMRC is open about the fact that the majority of tax fraud will not be the subject of a criminal investigation and it is remarkable that recent figures show a marked decline in criminal prosecutions for tax fraud. An FoI from law firm Kangsley Napley recently revealed that the number of prosecutions for tax fraud in the UK has halved in the last five years, despite HMRC setting itself a target to increase prosecutions over that period.3

That said, it is difficult to overstate the importance of the revelation that HMRC are investigating individuals in relation to transfer pricing irregularities and the news appears to have shocked many in the tax profession.

Under the tax avoidance is all legal dogma followed by most tax lawyers, transfer pricing irregularities would never be considered a criminal matter, and largely this has been the approach followed by HMRC for many years.

Given the huge resource constraints on the department, this change in approach appears to represent a significant change in priorities, and is perhaps a recognition that the previous approach has not worked.

HMRC has never before to our knowledge opened a criminal investigation into a tax avoidance scheme used by a large corporation. This is despite the fact that many tax avoidance schemes involve an element of fraud. The new approach should therefore be welcomed.

However, it should also be noted that most transfer pricing schemes are not developed in-house, but by accountants and lawyers working for the companies involved. Any criminal investigation therefore also needs to focus on the professional enablers as well as any act committed on behalf of a company by an individual working for it.

TaxWatch was quoted in the Financial Times on this story.

References

1 Emma Agyemang, “HMRC pursues multiple criminal investigations in corporate tax disputes”, Financial Times, 11th Jan 2021, https://www.ft.com/content/e7ef0ec3-f4de-40f9-ad95-0e7587ac7e2d

2 See, HMRC, Criminal Investigations Policy, available from: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/criminal-investigation/hmrc-criminal-investigation-policy

3 David Sleight, “HMRC fails to deliver on pledge to increase criminal prosecutions by end of 2020, FOI request reveals”, Kingsley Napley, 21 December 2020, https://www.kingsleynapley.co.uk/insights/blogs/criminal-law-blog/hmrc-fails-to-deliver-on-pledge-to-increase-criminal-prosecutions-by-end-of-2020-foi-request-reveals

Netflix, tax reform and the unreal nature of digital taxation

8th December 2020 by George Turner

Netflix, tax reform and the unreal nature of digital taxation

Netflix has announced that it will be reporting the billions of pounds of revenues it gets from its European customers to their local tax authorities. In the UK, customers have received an email telling them they will now be billed by Netflix Service UK.

In making this move Netflix is the latest in a line of digital companies that have changed their structures to ensure that more revenue is declared to local tax authorities.

In each case where a company has changed their practices, it has come after pressure from the public and tax authorities.

Netflix is no different, the move comes after the company has come under increased scrutiny by organisations like TaxWatch, UK Parliament, and a number of European Tax Authorities.¹ ² This includes in the UK, where Netflix has disclosed that its previous tax returns are under examination,³ and in Italy, where the company is the subject of a criminal investigation.⁴

So what does this all tell us about the tax structures employed by large digital companies and the process of tax reform and tax collection in the digital sector?

Digital services and distance selling

The argument often made is that digital companies have changed the way business and business tax works because they can provide their services from overseas in a way that is not possible with the exchange of physical goods.

This distance selling model has been a common feature of the tax structures employed by a numerous multinationals operating in the so called digital space, including well known companies such as Google, Facebook, and Amazon.

This has been the model applied by Netflix. As detailed in our report from earlier this year, Netflix has billed all its international customers from a company in the Netherlands, and not declared that income to local tax authorities in the UK and other European countries.

The model relies on long established rules of international taxation, which say that a government can only tax the profits of a company that is based overseas if they operate via a “permanent establishment” in the country. By selling their goods and services from outside the jurisdiction, it is hoped that the country where the customer is based loses the right to tax profits made by the seller.

Although this model may have some effect in smaller economies, for large economies like the UK, this argument has always been slightly problematic.

Amazon, Netflix, Google, Facebook and other large US multinationals all have a significant presence in the UK. Google has built a London HQ with 7,000 staff at Kings Cross. Facebook has 23,000m² of office space in Central London. Netflix has a long term lease on Shepperton Studios and does large amounts of production in the UK. All own companies that are incorporated in the UK.

Under the traditional distance selling model, these local UK companies have no sales to UK customers. They simply provide services to a non-UK unit of their parent company. The amount that the UK company charges for the services provided is reimbursed at relatively low rates, meaning that little profit arises in the UK.

This structure is designed to preserve the idea that the Irish or Dutch company billing the customer is an independent entity with no physical presence in the UK, and so the UK has no rights to tax any profits on sales.

Distance selling in practice

A key question for tax authorities is whether these structures operate in practice as they do on paper.

One of the early pioneers of the distance selling model was not a digital services company, but Amazon, which grew as an online bookseller. When you buy something from the Amazon.co.uk website, you are buying from a company called Amazon EU S.à r.l. in Luxembourg, which then contracts with a company in the UK, Amazon UK Services Ltd, to “fulfil” the order.⁵

Amazon’s argument from a tax point of view was that the Luxembourg company that made all the sales, should be viewed as being entirely separate from the UK company which fulfilled the order, other than the contract between the two.

However, this was not how the company in fact operated. In 2013, Lush, the cosmetics company, sued Amazon for breach of copyright.⁶ Part of the argument deployed by Amazon in the case was that Amazon UK and Amazon EU were two entirely separate companies, which meant that Amazon UK should not be a party to the action.

Having examined the evidence of how the company worked in practice, the judge found that the two companies worked together in furtherance of a common plan, and that the idea that Amazon UK merely facilitates Amazon EU to be: “wholly unreal and divorced from the commercial reality of the situation.” ⁷

As outlined by academic Claire Quentin, the findings of fact in this judgment undermined the entire basis of Amazon’s tax planning, although it appears that little was done by tax authorities at the time to reclaim any taxes on this basis. ⁸

Pressure for change starts to impact on tax structures

Amazon did start to change its structure after that judgment, but for unrelated reasons.

In 2015, the UK government imposed the Diverted Profits Tax, which placed an additional charge on profits shifted out of the country. In 2015 Amazon responded to this via the establishment of a UK branch of its Luxembourg company that would file a tax return in the UK and account for sales from UK customers.

In 2016, after years of public pressure that criticised Facebook’s practice of billing its companies from Ireland, the company started to book sales from larger clients in the UK via its UK subsidiary. At the time, the reason given by Facebook itself was that for larger clients, its UK sales team were already responsible for making the sale.

Both of these examples raise questions of whether or not the distance selling model was ever in fact effective in the countries where the company operated a sales infrastructure. If Facebook staff located in the UK were booking sales to large clients based in the UK, what possible reason did they have for sending an invoice from a company in Ireland? Is it really possible to separate the sales and marketing function from all the infrastructure required to deliver a product?

The impacts of structural change

Although changes to corporate structures, ensuring that revenue raised in a country is reported to local tax authorities, is a more transparent way of operating and so welcome, it does not necessarily follow that there will be huge increases in corporate tax as a result. In order to increase the tax base, the underlying avoidance behaviour needs to be tackled. This is why in the past, TaxWatch has proposed imposing income tax on royalties paid by digital companies to tax haven entities.

In 2015, Facebook UK had a current tax charge of £4m. Despite revenues jumping from £211m to £842m the following year, the company’s current tax charge increased to just £5m.⁹

We do not know how much tax Amazon EU pays in the UK after it started declaring revenuesto HMRC in 2015, as the company does not publish its accounts on a country by county basis. However, as a whole, Amazon EU S.à r.l. does not it seems pay any corporation tax at all – in fact the company receives tax credits from governments.

All this means that even though Netflix Services UK will see its revenues increase next year by hundreds of millions of pounds after it starts to bill its UK customers, that is no guarantee that this will flow through into higher profits declared in the UK.

In fact, as we have pointed out, Netflix has substantial operations in the UK that qualify for UK film production credits. These credits can be offset against any profits that the company makes in the UK.

The European approach

Whilst the UK has generally looked at the distance selling model deployed by digital companies as an avoidance issue, and responded with new anti-avoidance rules to capture the avoided tax (like the Diverted Profits Tax), European tax authorities have taken a different approach to the very same issues.

In France, tax authorities opened an investigation into fraud after it alleged that Google had failed to declare activities in the country. Google settled the matter and paid a fine of €965m.¹⁰

In Italy, Italian prosecutors are currently investigating whether or not Netflix is guilty of tax evasion through the non-declaration of revenue from its Italian subscribers (because until now, that revenue has been declared in the Netherlands). The case is interesting in that it asks whether the physical infrastructure that Netflix owns to deliver content to its subscribers (including servers and cables) means that it is in fact trading via a permanent establishment.¹¹ Netflix has until now not had an office in Italy.

These cases demonstrate how different tax authorities around the world can look at the same problem and take a very different view over the approach to take, including what legal remedies to employ in order to combat suspected tax avoidance.

Tax Reform

When Google settled its dispute with the French Authorities, the company made a statement which said:

“We remain convinced that a coordinated reform of the international tax system is the best way to provide a clear framework to companies operating worldwide.”¹²

It may well be the case that tax reform is necessary in the digital sector to make the administration of taxation easier. There also may be tax policy reasons why governments would want to reform the tax systems to require a different apportionment of income between countries.

However, the need for tax reform has often been used as an argument that the tax system is unable to capture the income of multinationals today, and that we live in some new world unforeseen by current tax law.

This narrative can suggest to the public that governments are unable to levy taxes until reform materialises, and that they should overlook any sins of the past.

However, as has been demonstrated by the various actions taken by governments with regard to the distance selling models used by digital companies, tax authorities can often do more than people may think when they take a detailed look at the commercial reality of these schemes and testing them against their current tax law. On top of that, public pressure works, as has been demonstrated by the way that changes to company tax structures have often followed public pressure. All of this can be done without the need to wait for international tax reform, and given the slow nature of that process, continuing scrutiny of the tax affairs of multinationals by tax authorities and the public is essential.

Photo by freestocks.org on Unsplash

1 Netflix tax affairs debated in the House of Commons, TaxWatch, https://www.taxwatchuk.org/netflix_debate_parliament/

2 Parliament forces Netflix to respond to TaxWatch research, TaxWatch, https://www.taxwatchuk.org/netflix_responds_to_taxwatch_report/

3 Video streaming giant Netflix faces new probe into how it escapes UK tax bills, Daily Mail, 09 August 2020, https://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/markets/article-8607869/Netflix-faces-new-probe-escapes-UK-tax-bills.html

4 Italy to Investigate Netflix for Failing to File Tax Return, Bloomberg, 03 October 2019, https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-10-03/italy-said-to-investigate-netflix-for-failing-to-file-tax-return

5 Why is Amazon still paying little tax in the UK?, Tax Justice Network, 10 August 2018, https://www.taxjustice.net/2018/08/10/why-is-amazon-still-paying-little-tax-in-the-uk/

6 Ethical cosmetics company Lush takes ‘bullying’ Amazon to court, The Guardian, 30 November 2013, https://www.theguardian.com/money/2013/nov/30/lush-amazon-trademark-court-battle

7 Cosmetic Warriors Limited, Lush Limited vs Amazon.co.uk Limited, Amazon EU SARL, High Court, 10 February 2014, https://www.bailii.org/cgi-bin/format.cgi?doc=/ew/cases/EWHC/Ch/2014/181.html&query=(cosmetic)+AND+(warriors)

8 Risk-Mining the Public Exchequer, Journal of Tax Administration, 2017, http://jota.website/index.php/JoTA/article/view/142/118

9 Facebook UK Ltd, Companies House, https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/06331310/filing-history

10 Google to pay $1 billion in France to settle fiscal fraud probe, Reuters, 12 September 2019, https://uk.reuters.com/article/us-france-tech-google-tax/google-to-pay-1-billion-in-france-to-settle-fiscal-fraud-probe-idUKKCN1VX1SM

11 Italy prosecutors open Netflix tax evasion investigation: source, Reuters, 03 October 2019, https://www.reuters.com/article/us-netflix-probe-italy-idUSKBN1WI0NE

12 France fines Google nearly €1 billion in ‘historic’ tax fraud ruling, DW, 12 September 2019, https://www.dw.com/en/france-fines-google-nearly-1-billion-in-historic-tax-fraud-ruling/a-50407433

When is tax avoidance tax fraud? Remarks to the FS Tax Conference 2020

23rd November 2020 by George Turner

Our Director, George Turner was recently asked to speak on a panel at the Hansuke Financial Services Tax Conference, during a session on tax fraud. The panel was moderated by Alice Kemp, Barrister at RPC and included Simon York, Director of the Fraud Investigation Service at HMRC, Donal Griffin, Financial Reporter at Bloomberg, Eric Ferron, Director General of Criminal Investigations at the Canadian Revenue Authority and Michael Sallah, Senior Reporter at the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists.

His remarks focused on whether tax avoidance could and should be subject to criminal investigation and prosecution.

George Turner’s remarks at the panel on Tax Fraud, Thursday 19th November:

Thank you so much for inviting me, it is really a privilege to be invited to talk on such a high profile panel.

Much of the focus of investigative journalism over the last ten years has focused on tax avoidance.

And it is held as an article of faith by many journalists, politicians and society more widely that there is a clear dividing line. Tax avoidance is legal, while tax evasion is illegal.

This faith has developed for a number of reasons. For journalists the idea that tax avoidance is legal provides a convenient defence against libel. How can someone be defamed for being accused of doing something legal?

A tax avoidance industry that makes billions of dollars a year selling and marketing tax avoidance schemes around the world wouldn’t make nearly as much money telling people that their schemes are potentially criminal.

However, without wanting to cast aspersions on the concept of faith more generally, this particular faith is a fiction.

In English law tax evasion is most often prosecuted under the Common Law Offence of Cheating the Revenue, where the potential liability is draconian in comparison to what we heard from Eric earlier about the criminal code in Canada. Cheating carries with it a maximum penalty of life imprisonment and an unlimited fine.

It is defined by the Oxford Dictionary of Law Enforcement as: “To make a false statement relating to tax with intent to defraud the Crown… or to deliver or cause to be delivered a false document relating to tax with similar intent.”

There is no requirement for the offence to be committed by the taxpayer, it can be committed by anyone who advises the taxpayer, or assists them in the preparation of a tax return, i.e. an accountant or a lawyer.

There is no requirement for concealment or deception, the conspirators can be open about what they are doing. There is not even a requirement for the revenue to demonstrate any actual loss.

As set out in the leading textbook on English criminal law:

“It is difficult to see how the offence could be stated in more expansive terms. The offence is of course even broader when charged as a conspiracy to cheat, as it often is.”

What this means is that pretty much the only issue at trial is whether the tax position being claimed is honest.

So what is dishonesty, in the legal sense? Quite simply, as has now been put beyond doubt by the Supreme Court, dishonesty is simply not being honest, and is judged against the standards of ordinary decent people.

This is an important point, because up until recently the courts believed that in order to be convicted of a crime of dishonesty the prosecution had to prove that the person committing the crime knew that they were being dishonest, that is now no longer a requirement, for the obvious reason that the more dishonest someone is the harder it would be to convict them. As put succinctly by Lord Nicholls “Honesty is not an optional scale, with higher or lower values accordingly to the moral standards of each individual”.

Now lets consider for a moment what the design and promotion of a tax avoidance scheme means in practice. Tax avoidance as understood by tax law, is where a real economic transaction is made to appear to be something else in order to cause a loss to the revenue, a gain for the taxpayer, and a healthy fee for the scheme operator.

This often involves a set of contrived or artificial transactions with no real business purpose, which means that the transactions do not provide an honest representation of the real economic position of the person or company involved.

In corporate taxation this can often mean things like paying royalties, commissions and management fees to shell companies that employ no staff or have no discernable operations. For individuals this often means the creation of fake investment losses, which are written off against a tax liability but are never in reality suffered.

Given widespread and targetted anti anti-avoidance rules schemes often require an element of concealment, which is why accountants and lawyers fight so hard to keep their advice from entering the public domain, or from being disclosed to tax authorities.

Now putting this together, we can see that many, and in my opinion the majority of tax avoidance schemes could easily fall foul of the law on cheating. Where there has been an active attempt to conceal the scheme, or a failure to information relating to a scheme, that is clearly fraud.

Given the ultimate judge of whether or not a scheme is dishonest is a group of randomly selected members of the public, and the total disdain with which the public view tax avoidance, I think many tax avoidance schemes, if put before a jury would be found to be dishonest, and therefore criminal.

In the past, the UK has prosecuted barristers and accountants for operating and tax avoidance schemes, although such examples are relatively few and far between.

We heard from Michael earlier the issues with deferred prosecution agreements in the US. In the US, the IRS has done what he UK never has, and prosecuted big four accountancy firms firms for their role in designing and selling tax shelters to high net worth individuals.

A previous head of HMRC, Dave Hartnett, once famously told a journalist that the reason why HMRC did not prosecute as many cases of tax fraud in the tax advisory profession compared to the US, was simply because advisers in the UK were more honest than American advisers.

Make of that what you will!

But the simple fact is there is no requirement in the UK, and I think elsewhere to prosecute tax fraud as a criminal offence. Tax authorities can instead seek to claim back any taxes lost through the civil legal process.

In many cases these civil cases do not even come to court, with the taxpayer settling the case. Indeed, there is no requirement on tax authorities to plead fraud at all, with many cases involving clearly fraudulent schemes being considered under anti-tax avoidance laws with no specific allegations of fraud being made out.

This approach clearly can have advantages for tax authorities which are focused on revenue raising, however it is also an approach which in my view encourages avoidance.

It must be said that it is HMRC’s policy that they will not prosecute most cases of tax fraud as a criminal offence, instead having a preference to pursue civil claims. This is clearly stated in HMRC’s criminal investigation policy which states the following:

“It’s HMRC’s policy to deal with fraud by use of the cost effective civil fraud investigation procedures under Code of Practice 9 wherever appropriate. Criminal investigation will be reserved for cases where HMRC needs to send a strong deterrent message or where the conduct involved is such that only a criminal sanction is appropriate”

This does sometimes lead to some bizarre outcomes, such as one case this year, Lindsay Hackett vs HMRC where HMRC was seeking a £13m fine from an individual involved in a fraudulent VAT scheme. The individual in question sought to claim that it was an abuse of process to not try them in a criminal court, where they would have greater procedural protections.

As the judge in the case noted, it is not often that someone expresses a preference for a criminal trial!

Another good example of this policy in action was provided this week, with the front page of the Financial Times declaring a new crackdown on corporate tax avoidance.

This related to a disclosure facility regarding corporate profit shifting. The disclosure facility was prompted by a series of investigations into large multinationals in the UK. If you look at what HMRC says about those investigations they say:

“HMRC has found that some Multinational Enterprises have adopted cross border pricing arrangements which are based on an incorrect fact pattern.”

What is an incorrect fact pattern if not a lie? An alternative fact perhaps?

It goes onto say:

“Some have made incorrect assumptions, or not implemented arrangements as originally intended or declared to HMRC, so that there is a divergence between the fact pattern on which the Transfer Pricing analysis is based, and what is actually happening on the ground. This could be for a variety of reasons, including incorrect or misleading statements on the nature or relative value of functions, assets and risks.

The description of the behaviours outlined by HMRC clearly point to fraud, but all HMRC are doing is inviting its large business customers to make a voluntary disclosure to resolve the matter.

I don’t think this approach will be sustainable in the future. Partly because there will be institutions like TaxWatch seeking to push government to take a stronger approach to tax fraud, and also because as we emerge from the Coronavirus crisis and governments start asking the public to contribute to paying back the vast amounts of money spent over the last six months, I do not think the public are going to tolerate an approach where people and companies committing tax fraud are spared a criminal prosecution.

Comment: ECJ decision should not let Apple off the hook

15th July 2020 by George Turner

The decision of the European Court of Justice (ECJ) on the Apple case means that Ireland will have to pay back €13bn in taxes they were told to collect from the company by the European Commission. The Commission’s ruling, which was annulled by the court, found that Apple had managed to gain a substantial tax advantage through an agreement they came to with the Irish authorities over the tax treatment of certain subsidiaries the company operated in the country. The Commission argued that the tax benefit gave Apple an unfair advantage, and so should be returned to Ireland.

Today’s ruling from the ECJ is therefore not about whether or not Apple has engaged in tax avoidance, but whether the European Commission was right to find that the government of Ireland had enabled Apple’s tax avoidance scheme by granting the company a tax ruling which should not have normally been available to companies operating in Ireland.

The fact that Apple has been engaging in tax avoidance is beyond doubt. According to the company’s own corporate filings, Apple paid just five per cent on its profits generated outside of the US between 2008 and 2015.

The company argues that the low tax bills it faces in countries like the UK are due to the fact that its products are designed in the United States, where most of its taxes are paid.

However, this argument is simply not borne out by the facts. According to our research, Apple’s own corporate filings from the last five years disclose that the company declared close to 70% of its profits outside of the United States.

It is true that the company has faced a much higher tax bill on the minority of profit it declares in the US. That is because most of its non-US profits have historically been shifted into companies which are not tax resident anywhere in the world.

This structure is very well documented by various investigations that have been carried out by government agencies and legislatures.

Three of the companies that are the focus of today’s ruling by the ECJ, Apple Operations International, Apple Sales International, and Apple Operations Europe were examined by the US Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations in 2013, which concluded that they were part of a “complex web of offshore entities” designed to “avoid billions of dollars in U.S. income taxes”.

In the context of the vast nature of Apple’s tax avoidance scheme, the European Commissions focus on tax rulings made by Ireland was always a relatively narrow point, but this narrowness reflects the fact that the EU does not have many tools to deal with these kinds of issues. Tax policy has always been closely guarded by member states.

The high stakes involved in this dispute came about because Apple was using Ireland as a conduit to remove profits from countries around the world. Whatever the outcome of today’s ruling, no-country outside of Ireland would have been impacted by it.

For that reason, the judgement should serve as a reminder that governments need to urgently press ahead with reforming the international tax system and to implement domestic reforms to ensure that profits are taxed appropriately in their jurisdiction and make sure that the kind of corporate trickery deployed by companies like Apple is a thing of the past.

Apple’s scheme presents a particularly pressing issue because there is no backstop to Apple’s tax avoidance scheme such as the Digital Services Tax. Whereas other digital companies, such as Google and Facebook, will soon be faced with additional charges to make up for their profit shifting.

Photo by Marcin Nowak on Unsplash

Tax avoidance, bailouts and bribery – The UK government’s Corona Corporate Finance Facility

6th June 2020 by George Turner

On 04 June the Bank of England published the names of 53 companies that had outstanding loans under the UK government’s Covid Corporate Financing Facility.

The list contains a number of companies that have had links to tax havens, or have seen controversy regarding their financial affairs.

The publication of the list follows growing calls for the government to place more conditions on companies receiving state support, and the Scottish and Welsh Governments have legislated to prevent companies incorporated in tax havens from accessing funds.

We covered the issue of bailout conditionality in our recent report, Paying in Equally?, in which we suggested that conditions could be based on future tax behaviour. Others have made similar suggestions, including Glyn Fullelove, President of the Chartered Institute of Taxation, who has suggested that support to companies could be predicated on businesses committing to lower their risk rating with HMRC.

HMRC already reviews the “tax risk” of large businesses and includes use of tax avoidance schemes in that assessment. Eligibility for help could be linked to not being judged “high risk” due to such behaviour. 2/11

— Glyn Fullelove (@glyn12gh) May 11, 2020

Dame Margaret Hodge MP, chair of the All Party Group on Responsible Taxation, has taken up this idea and written to the Chancellor suggesting that the government implement it.

Following the publication of the list of companies receiving support under the Covid Corporate Finance Facility, we went through the list to identify companies with links to tax havens, or that have seen other allegations poor financial conduct.

Companies with links to tax havens or tax avoidance

Overall we found 13 companies with links to tax havens, which made up 29% of the loans given.

Company	Value of CCFF (£m)	Domicile	Parent / Owner jurisdiction	Notes
ABB Finance B.V.	£400	Netherlands	Switzerland	Companies house not up to date
Baker Hughes UK Funding Company PLC	£600	UK	Bermuda	Ultimate holding company GE, currently in litigation with HMRC over alleged tax fraud. Immediate parent in Bermuda
Carnival plc	£25	UK	UK	Ships registered in Panama. Carnival is two companies, one British, one Panamian.
Chanel Limited	£600	UK	Cayman Islands	Ultimate parent company is Litor Limited, based in the Cayman Islands
CNH Industrial N.V.	£600	Netherlands		US/Italian corporation, incorporated in Netherlands but resident in the UK for tax purposes
Easyjet PLC	£600	UK	Cayman Islands	Easygroup who are owned by a Cayman Islands based trust, have a 34% stake.
J.C.B. Service	£600	UK	Netherlands	JCB parent company located in the Netherlands.
Johnson Controls International plc	£370	Ireland	Ireland	American multinational domiciled in Ireland. Was subject of second largest corporate inversion in history
PACCAR Financial PLC	£170	UK	Netherlands,USA	Immediate parent is in the Netherlands, and ultimate parent is in the USA
Schlumberger Plc	£150	UK	Netherlands	Parent incorporated in Curacao
Telefónica Europe B.V.	£200	Netherlands	Netherlands	Spanish telephone network company, registered in the Netherlands
Tottenham Hotspur Stadium Limited	£175	UK	Bahamas	Owned by billionaire tax exile
Wizz Air	£300	Hungary	Jersey	Hungarian airline with a holding company in Jersey
Total	£4,790
All 53 companies receiving CCFF	£16,250
Per cent of money going to tax-haven linked companies	29.48%

We have defined companies as having links to tax havens if they are owned by a tax haven company or a tax exile, or are incorporated themselves in a tax haven.
One of the more interesting companies on this list this is Baker Hughes, which is a subsidiary of General Electric (via a Bermuda holding company). GE is embroiled in a £1bn tax dispute with HMRC over unpaid taxes going back to 2004. The case is currently being litigated, and it was recently revealed that HMRC had changed their case to allege fraud on the part of GE. The company denies the allegation.

A number of companies are owned by parent companies in the Netherlands, or are incorporated in the Netherlands themselves. The Netherlands is both a well-known tax haven, and a major economy in itself. We counted the company if the Netherlands was being used as a conduit, with substantial operations or the headquarters of the company elsewhere.

So, for example, ABB Finance, a Dutch subsidiary of a Swiss multi-national and Telefonica, a Spanish company applying for UK government funding via subsidiary in the Netherlands, make the list, whilst AkzoNobel, which is headquartered in the Netherlands, does not.

A number of companies used tax havens as vehicles for personal holdings, or are owned by tax exiles.
For example, Chanel Limited, is owned by Litor Limited, a company based in the Cayman Islands. The Cayman Islands is also used for the vehicle to hold Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou’s Easygroup, which in turn owns a substantial shareholding in EasyJet.

Tax haven UK costs the taxpayer

The list demonstrates that companies can qualify for UK government support, even though they have relatively little activity in the UK.

In recent years the UK has increasingly sought to set itself up as a tax haven for multinational companies. The primary attraction for companies becoming tax resident in the UK is that our controlled foreign company rules mean that UK tax resident corporations are not usually liable for UK corporation taxes on profits made outside of the UK.

This can be a particular advantage if the multinational can put profits into more traditional tax havens which don’t charge any corporation tax. Profits end up being taxed nowhere. This is not the case in other countries (such as Italy) where companies can be liable for taxes on their global profits.

CNH Industrial Limited, a US-Italian company formed as a merger between Fiat Industrial, and Case New Holland, appears to be a company that has taken advantage of the UK’s business friendly tax regime. The company is incorporated in the Netherlands but tax resident in the UK, because its Dutch parent locates its office in London.

CNH International BV does own a manufacturing plant in Essex, but it is a relatively small operation in comparison to its global footprint. In total, CNH International BV employs just over 1,000 people in the UK, out of a total of 64,000 worldwide.

According to the annual accounts of CNH International BV, and a number of subsidiary companies it has in the UK, its UK operations are loss making. As a result the company faces no tax liability in the UK on any income from either the UK or abroad.

However, its presence in the UK allows the company to access support from the UK taxpayer, and CNH International BV has borrowed £600m from the UK government, which is more than 50% of the company’s £1.1bn turnover at its Basildon plant.

Financial impropriety

Two companies stuck out as having had serious non-tax related financial issues.

ABB

ABB, a Swiss multi-national, received a £400m loan via a Dutch holding company – ABB Finance B.V.. In the UK, ABB has a company, ABB Holdings, which as of 04 July is 9 months late with filing its latest annual accounts.
ABB Holdings in turn owns ABB Limited in the UK, which reports that it had a turnover of £700m in 2018, the latest accounts that are available. This means that the UK government facility accounts for 57% of the turnover of ABB Limited. Another ABB company in the UK, ABB combined Heat and Power, is in voluntary liquidation.

Chemring Group

Chemring is a UK company operating in the defense sector. According to a press release on its website https://www.chemring.co.uk/media/press-releases/2018/18-01-2018a Chemring referred itself to the Serious Fraud Office in 2018, triggering a criminal investigation into bribery, corruption and money laundering. As confirmed by the SFO website, this is still a live investigation.

This research has been featured in the Financial Times, Daily Mail, Vice, The Telegraph, and The Times among others.

Correction – 06 June 2020

An earlier version of this article included British Airways in table of companies above. British Airways (BA) Limited is owned by a Jersey holding company – British Airways Number Two Limited, which is why we included the company on the list.

However, the entity receiving the government loan was British Airways PLC and not British Airways (BA) Limited. British Airways PLC is directly owned by IAG in Spain.

The proportion of loans going to tax haven linked companies was also updated to reflect this change.

UK set to introduce the Amazon tax

1st June 2020 by George Turner

Leaked documents reported in the Financial Times indicate that the UK is to make online marketplaces such as Amazon and eBay liable to collect VAT on behalf of their sellers.

The documents, described as an informal consultation, make clear that the UK is set on the policy, with experts being consulted on design details.

Currently, businesses selling their goods via online marketplaces are liable for their own VAT. This has been a boon to fraudulent traders selling into the UK from overseas. In 2017, a BBC Panorama documentary demonstrated how easy it was for sellers to smuggle goods into the country from China VAT free and sell them to UK customers via online platforms.¹

Although there has been a lot of focus on fraudsters using Amazon and eBay, the two largest marketplaces, there are a number of other marketplaces allowing non-uk businesses to sell into the country via their platforms.

The Treasury estimates that VAT fraud using online marketplaces costs the UK between £1bn-£1.5bn a year, which is in the region of the amount TaxWatch estimates is tax lost to corporate tax avoidance by five of the largest tech giants.

In addition, fraudsters selling into the UK undercut legitimate retailers, leading to job losses and store closures on the high street.

In 2016, the UK government introduced legislation to curb VAT fraud on online market places. This made marketplaces liable for the unpaid VAT bills of businesses using their platform if they refused to remove them after being identified by HMRC as non-compliant. Between 2018 and 2019 HMRC identified 4,650 sellers as being non-compliant.

However, following FOI’s from TaxWatch we found that this approach was only recouping 20% of tax lost.

The government is planning to bring in the new policy in 2020 to coincide with changes to VAT that will be required when the Brexit transition period ends. However, the UK could introduce this change earlier. Germany made online market places responsible for the VAT liabilities of its sellers in 2019.²

The change in the UK government’s approach comes after years of campaigning by organisations such as Retailers Against VAT Abuse Schemes and the Campaign Against VAT Fraud on eBay and Amazon in the UK.

Photo by Bryan Angelo on Unsplash

1 BBC Panorama: The fraud costing the UK £1bn a year, BBC News, 27 November 2017, https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-42143849

2 News: German Amazon Marketplace Sellers obligated to Register for VAT, SimplyVAT, 20 December 2018, https://simplyvat.com/news-german-amazon-marketplace-sellers-obligated-to-register-for-vat/

The coronavirus is not an excuse for tech giants to cash in on taxpayer generosity

14th April 2020 by George Turner

Throughout the coronavirus crisis, technology companies have played an important role in efforts to combat the disease. Google has been using its data to monitor movements amongst the population and test the effectiveness of lockdown measures. Amazon has partnered with the government to deliver Covid-19 testing kits.

But will all of this work come at a price?

In the UK, TechUK, the industry group that represents Facebook and Google as well as many others has asked for the government to delay the start of the Digital Services Tax. The Times reports today that the argument being deployed by TechUK is that recent changes to the tax have widened the scope of the tax, causing an unexpected compliance burden that companies can not meet during the crisis. Tax experts consulted by the paper, as well as our own research, have found no such changes to the UK legislation.

The Digital Services Tax is a new tax that has been imposed on the revenues of social media companies, search engines and online market places – Facebook, Google, and Amazon. The tax, which came into effect just a few days ago, places a 2% charge on revenues generated by these companies from UK customers. Although it is a new tax, it is in effect an anti-avoidance measure designed to counter some of the aggressive tax avoidance schemes used by these companies. It only applies to companies with global revenues of more than £750m, meaning that only the very largest companies are caught by it. There is a generous £25m tax free allowance built into the scheme.

The UK is not the only country to implement such a tax. According to the US Tax Foundation, 14 countries in Europe have either implemented or proposed a Digital Services Tax at rates ranging from 2%-7.5%.

The proliferation of Digital Services Taxes is a direct result of the failure of the OECD to agree on a comprehensive solution to the problem of tax avoidance by large multinational tech companies. A failure that has resulted in governments losing billions of pounds a year in tax revenues. In the UK we estimate that just five companies manage to avoid taxes of £1bn a year by shifting profits offshore.

Looked at in this context, the UK’s Digital Services Tax is a relatively modest measure, with the government estimating that it will collect around £400m a year from around 30 companies. Staggeringly, this estimate includes a 30% allowance for companies putting in place measures to avoid paying the tax. These figures are speculative, and the Office for Budget Responsibility say they come with a high degree of uncertainty.

At TaxWatch, using information published by the Treasury setting out how the tax operates, combined with our research estimating the revenues that large tech companies derive from UK customers, we estimate that a delay to the Digital Services Tax would benefit Google to the tune of £187m and Facebook £39m.

If implementation was delayed it would offset a significant chunk of the total amount companies are giving to governments to fight the coronavirus. The bill for Google is almost as much as the total amount of free ad credits Google has offered to the World Health Organisation and over 100 government agencies around the world ($250m (£203m)) as part of their response to the Coronavirus. A survey of what some tech companies have offered as part of the effort to fight coronavirus is set out here – https://www.taxwatchuk.org/tech_company_covid_donations/

Unfortunately, TechUK’s lobbying efforts appear not to be just the actions of one overzealous industry group in the UK. There appears to be a concerted effort by tech companies to use the coronavirus as an excuse to loosen regulations in a number of countries.

Reuters recently reported that in India, industry lobbyists representing the same companies are co-ordinating a similar campaign to defer the Indian version of the digital services tax.

Back in the United States, the New York Times reports how a number of tech companies have used the coronavirus to lobby against a range of government policies from labour laws to privacy protections.

Lobbyists may have thought the coronavirus outbreak an opportunity to realise long standing campaign aims, but they may have underestimated the reputational damage their clients could suffer if they are seen to be exploiting the crisis. The Times of London today ran a lead article heavily critical of the move from TechUK.

Government support mechanisms are supposed to be in place to help businesses in distress. Given that large tech companies are set to do relatively well out of the crisis, perhaps now is not the time for them to be looking for a hand-out. It is certainly not the time for governments to get rid of policies designed to combat tax avoidance by the tech industry.

We asked TechUK for a comment, they did not respond.

This research has been featured in The Times and The Telegraph.

Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash

georget

The Amazon Tax-Cut

Super expensing

Who benefits from super expensing?

Supercharging super-expensing

Amazon

Logistics companies

Energy and infrastructure

Deferred taxation

Avoidance

Conclusions

Comparing the prosecution of tax crime with benefits crime

What gets measured gets done?

HMRC opens criminal investigations into transfer pricing schemes – Comment

References

Netflix, tax reform and the unreal nature of digital taxation

Netflix, tax reform and the unreal nature of digital taxation

Digital services and distance selling

Distance selling in practice

Pressure for change starts to impact on tax structures

The impacts of structural change

The European approach

Tax Reform

When is tax avoidance tax fraud? Remarks to the FS Tax Conference 2020

George Turner’s remarks at the panel on Tax Fraud, Thursday 19th November:

Comment: ECJ decision should not let Apple off the hook

Tax avoidance, bailouts and bribery – The UK government’s Corona Corporate Finance Facility

Companies with links to tax havens or tax avoidance

Tax haven UK costs the taxpayer

Financial impropriety

ABB

Chemring Group

UK set to introduce the Amazon tax

The coronavirus is not an excuse for tech giants to cash in on taxpayer generosity