Category: Personal Finance

Apparently, Taxing a Company’s Sales is a Bad Idea

In the midst of the row about Google’s low tax settlement, former chancellor Lord Lawson came up with a radical proposal. In an era where multinationals can artificially shift profits around the world, he said that taxing those profits has “had its day”, and corporation tax should instead be greatly reduced and “bolstered” by a tax on companies’ sales – the total amount of money that a business receives from selling goods or services to its customers.

The U.K. is Looking for a Taxpayer’s Champion

January is a busy month for tax in the UK as millions of people struggle to complete their tax returns before the January 31 deadline.

Meanwhile, HMRC, the tax agency, is dealing with public ire over its acceptance of Google’s complex – but perfectly legal – tax arrangements and it is trying to find a new chief executive to replace the incumbent, Lin Homer, who recently resigned and will step down in April. It is a tough time for the UK’s tax authority.

The (Tax Inversion) Law of the Land

Globalisation – and the global economic crisis – have contributed to the erosion of national tax bases and in recent years some of the biggest multinationals, among them Apple, Vodafone, Amazon, Google, Starbucks and Microsoft, have been scrutinised for their aggressive tax planning practices. Using (among other techniques) transfer pricing, inter-company lending, royalty payments for licensing agreements, cost-sharing agreements and offsetting group losses, multinational groups can achieve very low effective tax rates.