argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Tax Avoidance and Multinational Companies — House of Commons, 2016-02-03
Topic: Macroeconomics
Margaret Eve Hodge (Labour, Centre-left): No. With the greatest respect, those are not the facts. The judge looked at five cases. The NAO looked at 10 cases and found in three of them that HMRC had not abided by its own rules The reason the Chancellor and his team do not get it is the people they talk to about tax. A small army of tax professionals and multinational companies are the only people with whom they converse. I have to say to the Minister that there is a difference between good working relationships, which I applaud, and undue influence and preferential treatment, which I do not. Talking to stakeholders is a good thing. Being captured by stakeholders is a bad thing We just have to look at the evidence—and not just the 25 meetings held with Google. If we look at the Tax Professionals Forum, its members are KPMG, Ernst and Young, Grant Thornton and so on. There is nobody from any of the tax campaigning organisations. There is nobody from any of the charities and no academic with a different view. Ernst and Young made £250 million in recent years by advising Google, Apple, Facebook and Amazon Let us look at what the Minister has done. He appointed David Heaton from Baker Tilly to the Government’s advisory panel on the general anti-abuse rule, which was supposed to look at closing loopholes. That particular gentleman was captured on video describing "ways to keep the money out of the Chancellor’s grubby hands" Let us look at what happened to Dave Hartnett—within six months he was going to work at HSBC and within a year he was going to work at Deloitte. Let us look at Edward Troup, who is now our commissioner on taxation. He wrote in the Financial Times that "Taxation is legalised extortion." This is a small bunch of people who all have the same interests I want to make two other brief points. The Government say they want companies to pay proper tax, but the Government are obsessed with tax competition. That means far from tackling tax havens and so on, they are trying to make the UK an alternative best tax haven in the world. We only have to look at three changes the Government brought through on the control of foreign company rules, Eurobonds and the infamous patent box tax relief to see that that is right We do not know whether the Google settlement is fair, because under the existing law—the Minister is right—we cannot see it. I personally do not accept that HMRC properly challenged Google on the evidence the Public Accounts Committee collected, which demonstrated that it engages in economic activity here in the UK. I personally do not think the whistleblowers were listened to properly. Google does sell here. It does complete sales here. It does research and development here. Its economic activity is here. What on earth is that massive complex in King’s Cross for if not to undertake economic activity I have to say to the Minister that he has lost the argument on transparency. He ought to cave in gracefully and open up the books of these multinational companies so we can restore confidence.
Tax Avoidance and Multinational Companies — House of Commons, 2016-02-03
Topic: Macroeconomics
Michael Joseph Patrick Kane (Labour, Centre-left): The Google tax debacle demonstrates that attempts to patch up the current international tax system are woefully inadequate. Despite the efforts of the OECD and its base erosion and profit shifting overhaul, it appears highly likely that corporate tax will continue to be an optional extra for most multinational companies The UK’s tax treaties—this is to do with Ireland as well in terms of Google—with developing countries allow UK firms to limit their tax payments, often in countries where the money is most needed to fund hard-pressed public services. The hon. Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Roger Mullin) rightly mentioned Malawi earlier and I praise him for that According to the IMF, recent calculations have shown that developing countries are losing around $200 billion a year through tax avoidance by companies. The OECD has estimated that tax havens could be costing those developing countries three times the current global aid budget The value flowing out of countries from companies not paying their tax is huge: an estimated $l trillion a year. To put that into context, Africa is now a net creditor to the world in terms of the tax it loses from multinational companies operating in African countries’ jurisdictions. According to Oxfam, corporate tax avoidance in the form of trade mispricing by G7-based companies and investors cost Africa $6 billion in 2010—more than enough to improve the healthcare systems of the Ebola-affected countries of Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea Then there are the sins of omission. Anonymous shell companies in the British Virgin Islands were used to acquire mining concessions in the Democratic Republic of Congo for $275 million. They were then sold for $1.63 billion, costing the state $1.36 billion, or twice the combined health and education budget What is to be done? The Prime Minister is hosting an anti-corruption summit in May, and is inviting Heads of State from all over the world to London, but how can the UK lecture other countries on what they should be doing to tackle tax avoidance and tax corruption when the Crown dependencies and overseas territories in our own constitutional backyard are such notorious purveyors of secrecy? I put that case to the Minister on BBC Radio 5 Live just before the election We need to insist that multinationals publish their basic accounts in every country. We need to insist that they clean up their backyards, and ensure that British-linked tax havens—the Crown protectorates—cannot continue to act as conduits for tax dodging. We need to stop applying sticking plasters to broken OECD tax rules, and mandate the UN to develop a set of rules that ensure that big businesses pay their fair share of tax in every country in which they do business.
Tax Avoidance and Multinational Companies — House of Commons, 2016-02-03
Topic: Macroeconomics
Stephen Creswell Timms (Labour, Centre-left): I am highly enamoured of the record of the last Labour Government, and particularly enamoured of their Treasury policies I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) for drawing attention to an assessment by the Financial Times of the comparative records of the Labour Government between 1997 and 2010 and subsequent Governments. The article, written by Vanessa Houlder in February last year, made three very important points to set the record straight. First, it stated that the current Chancellor "has raised much less income than the last Labour government from reforms to tackle corporate tax avoidance" The second point was referred to by my hon. Friend in his introductory remarks. The article stated: "Measures put in place by Labour during its 13 years in power to counter corporate tax avoidance are projected to raise ten times as much over the next four years as those introduced by the…coalition government." Thirdly and importantly, the article stated that the coalition "eased laws aimed at stopping companies using tax havens, which had been repeatedly tightened under Labour." That is the difference between the record of the Government when I was a Treasury Minister and the current Government. Labour in government did the heavy lifting on corporate tax avoidance. The new Government, when elected, had different priorities, as they were entitled to have, but they cannot claim to have maintained the progress Labour made, because they have not I welcome the Government’s seeming support for country-by-country reporting, but those close to the process find it difficult to recognise that the Government have led on it since 2010, as they have claimed. We certainly led on it prior to 2010. The original idea was devised, I think, by Richard Murphy, about whom we have heard a good deal more in the last couple of years, but it was first brought to me, when I occupied the Minister’s office, by Christian Aid. I pay tribute to its work on this. It came to see me in early 2009. We had a series of international meetings in Berlin, Paris and elsewhere in 2009, at which I put the issue on the agenda, and that culminated in the first joint meeting of the OECD tax and development committee in January 2010 in Paris. That kicked off the process that I am delighted the Government are now swinging behind. But Labour in government started this off and Labour is entitled to the credit for that.
Tax Avoidance and Multinational Companies — House of Commons, 2016-02-03
Topic: Macroeconomics
Victoria Jane Foxcroft (Labour, Centre-left): I am grateful for the opportunity to contribute to this important debate I was going to start this speech by going through the alphabet, naming different companies that did not pay their fair share of tax: Amazon, BP, Citigroup, Dell, eBay, Facebook, Google. I stopped at Google and went to the search engine of the same name and searched for the word "alphabet." Most people would assume that I found information on the alphabet—A, B, C, D and so on—but no: what came up was "Alphabet Inc." It turns out that the Google we all know and use has created a parent company, and it has called it Alphabet. Alphabet is a multinational conglomerate that was created last year. It is the parent company of Google and several other companies previously owned by, or tied to, Google. It is the world’s most valuable company, even wealthier than Apple. However, it does have something in common with Apple: the desire to not pay tax In a world that is becoming more and more connected, and as we seek to develop far-reaching global trade deals, we find that multinational corporations are moving their money and profits around the world. We should be under no illusion as to why they do this: it is to maximise their profits by reducing their tax liability So how do we make multinational companies pay their tax, when they invest so much in trying to dodge paying their taxes? Indeed, they use any system, loophole or avenue open to them to get out of their tax obligation. With this Chancellor they have even got someone on the inside helping them out. Frankly, it sends out the wrong message The Chancellor, often referred to as the octopus, with his tentacles reaching every part of Government, has declared his tax deal with Google a victory. He may be the octopus, but we are not his suckers. He should publish the details of the deal, show transparently what was agreed, deal with every loophole that comes forward and ensure we deal with the deficit by ensuring those who can pay do pay I join my colleagues today in demanding that the Government publish full details of the deal and implement country-by-country reporting of company accounts.
Tax Avoidance and Multinational Companies — House of Commons, 2016-02-03
Topic: Macroeconomics
Caroline Louise Flint (Labour, Centre-left): The hon. Member for Spelthorne (Kwasi Kwarteng) might have commanded a little more respect if he had listened with respect to the views of my right hon. Friend the Member for Barking (Dame Margaret Hodge). This debate is about Google, but it is also about so much more. We know that Google is currently valued at $524 billion, and that its profits in 2015 alone were £11 billion, an increase of £1 billion in a year, based on revenues of more than £52 billion. The Daily Mail has reported that Google has more than 5,000 UK-based employees, which is about a 10th of its total worldwide workforce. That figure includes 279 of its European, middle eastern and African directors, compared with Dublin, where it has 79 such directors. As colleagues have said, Google is constructing a new headquarters worth £1 billion near King’s Cross, in addition to its five other offices in the UK I do not want to get into a blame game. I want us to get the way we recover tax in this country right, but I believe that certain factors did not help to ensure focus on this growing problem. The public finances were healthy up to 2008. In the year before the crash, the Treasury netted nearly 30% of its corporate tax receipts just from financial services. That figure had fallen to about 17% by 2009. Also, at that time, the online giants of today were largely below the radar. Many floated before they had made a penny profit. Let us look at the corporate giants of today. Twitter, which floated in 2013, was valued at $18 billion on the day of its flotation yet it had never made a profit up to that point and did not do so for another year or more. Likewise, when Google first floated in 2004, its valuation was $23 billion but it was not turning the kind of profits that we are talking about today. Google’s circumstances are somewhat different today, yet after six years and with all the benefits of hindsight, this Government have achieved a payment of only £130 million, and we do not know how much of that is interest or penalties. We have to do more on this We can add other household names to the list of companies that paid no corporation tax in 2014: Shell, Lloyds Banking Group, AstraZeneca, SAB Miller, Vodafone and British American Tobacco. Those six companies made a combined profit of £30 billion in 2014, yet they are notionally making no money in the UK.
Tax Avoidance and Multinational Companies — House of Commons, 2016-02-03
Topic: Macroeconomics
Anna Catherine Turley (Labour, Centre-left): Does my right hon. Friend agree that initiatives such as the Fair Tax Mark, which is a bit like the fair trade stamp, should encourage more companies to demonstrate publicly their tax liabilities and responsibilities, and that they should consider it a badge of pride that they are paying their full tax?
Tax Avoidance and Multinational Companies — House of Commons, 2016-02-03
Topic: Macroeconomics
Caroline Louise Flint (Labour, Centre-left): Absolutely. I think that there is cross-party support for more transparency Given that Google, HMRC and the Chancellor were quick to publicise the outcome of their negotiations, surely they should be open about how they arrived at the figure of £130 million. We need to know what sort of benchmark this is setting not only for Google but for other companies as well. The Government make the rules and HMRC enforces them, and it is about time that we had more openness. To be honest, if I worked for Google and I were advising it, I would say, "Volunteer to give the information, because this situation is not doing your company any good whatsoever." This is important not only to reassure public opinion but to restore the confidence of those UK-based businesses that have much lower revenues than these giant corporations yet pay considerably more tax, including 20% corporation tax We cannot content ourselves with companies appearing to decide whether or not to pay any tax, as though it were discretionary or some kind of charitable payment to the UK. If the broadest shoulders are to bear their share of the burden for funding public services and our pension system, I am afraid that the Government will have to raise their game. We will support the Government on that. Our Labour motion might not receive a majority in the vote today, but this problem will not go away. I, for one, am looking forward to next week when, as a member of the Public Accounts Committee, I shall hear directly from Google and HMRC about what they have to say.
Tax Avoidance and Multinational Companies — House of Commons, 2016-02-03
Topic: Macroeconomics
Wesley Paul William Streeting (Labour, Centre-left): I am grateful for the opportunity to speak in this debate. As someone who represents a constituency containing thousands of business, of all shapes and sizes, many of which feed into the national supply chain, I wish to say at the outset that I am very proud of the role that not just my constituency, but this country plays, with many of our leading industries leading the way globally. I want this country to be a good place to do business and to set up a business, and to continue to lead the world with competitive tax rates This debate is actually about fairness and transparency. To follow up something that the hon. Member for Croydon South (Chris Philp) said, the fact is that the Minister could not tell us last week what effective tax rate Google would be paying. I can tell him what the effective tax rate is for businesses in my constituency—what rate of corporation tax they will be paying—so why is it so difficult for Google, a multinational giant, to be transparent with the public about the rate of tax it is paying?
Tax Avoidance and Multinational Companies — House of Commons, 2016-02-03
Topic: Macroeconomics
Helen Catherine Goodman (Labour, Centre-left): I was trying to distinguish between real intellectual property and intellectual property that is purely branding. Take the example of the BBC, which sells television programmes. The BBC can get more money for its television programmes than a small television production company, partly because it is called the BBC, even though the actual costs of making the television programme are the same The question we have to ask ourselves is whether, because of the high value of the brand, the company should pay less tax. I submit that that is a fundamental mistake, because the brand is an asset. What the company is getting in that situation is economic rent. The fact that it has a valuable asset is not a reason for it to pay less tax. That is absurd. If a company invests in a piece of machinery and makes a claim against its capital allowance, over time the amount that it can claim against tax decreases as it moves from the point at which the investment was made. In cases where the brand is the asset, companies are claiming more over time as they are selling more. I think that is an area where we could very usefully tighten up Perhaps this area of tax would be better handled if we had a few more economists looking at the underlying economics and fewer accountants, who seem very comfortable with the way the system works but are not driven by the desire that the rest of us have to make sure that these people pay their fair share.
Tax Avoidance and Multinational Companies — House of Commons, 2016-02-03
Topic: Macroeconomics
Marie Elizabeth Rimmer (Labour, Centre-left): The subject of tax avoidance and tax evasion is of real relevance to my constituents, for whom paying tax is not negotiable—unlike, it seems, for large corporations such as Google The rationale for public service cuts has been based on the notion that we, as a country, cannot afford to pay for public services in the way we have done—that we cannot afford to meet the basic needs of our citizens because of the debts facing the country It is important to note that the Government have been in office for nearly six years. During that time, the Chancellor and the Prime Minister have been able to take action on these issues. The limited progress that the Government have made is welcome, but the Google deal flies in the face of it. Their attempts to blame the previous Labour Government every time their record is questioned is wearing thin—even with their own supporters Issues of taxation and who pays are all the more pertinent when the Conservatives’ political choices mean that jobs are being lost and services closed, and that people are suffering as a result. The cuts agenda the Government have embarked on over the past 69 months has hit my constituents extremely hard. The cumulative cuts that the St Helens and Knowsley councils, which cover my constituency, have faced since the Government took office add up to a staggering £168 million. The £94 million cut from Knowsley’s budget is the highest of any council in the country, despite the area having some of the highest levels of deprivation and lowest incomes. That has meant unavoidable, savage cuts to services across the board, and that is clear to everyone in my constituency. However, the detail of why Google is paying only £130 million in tax is still shrouded in secrecy This is about a choice as to who pays what. The Government have made very clear who has no option but to pay and for whom the issue is negotiable. Local government is now meant to self-finance, with the phasing out of the block grant, and authorities are meant to generate business activity to get tax from it. So who is paying while Google does not? Many small, and large, businesses in my constituency pay their tax—they have no choice. The nature of their business means that they cannot physically move premises like some other businesses. They have no option to relocate their profits to other countries, as is convenient for others. If the Chancellor wishes local authorities to generate more of their own finances for themselves and rely less on central Government, how can he justify businesses that make a large contribution to local economies and which pay their taxes locally subsidising, in effect, the likes of Google and other multinationals?
Public Finances: Scotland — House of Commons, 2016-02-03
Topic: Macroeconomics
Alexander Cunningham (Labour, Centre-left): We hear of cheers in the Scottish Parliament this afternoon when the Scottish Finance Minister tried to justify public expenditure cuts by the Tories. Is that not the final proof that the socialist credentials that the SNP claims have no foundation whatsoever?
Public Finances: Scotland — House of Commons, 2016-02-03
Topic: Macroeconomics
Ian Murray (Labour, Centre-left): I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that intervention, because what we have seen this afternoon in Scotland is a Scottish Labour party determined to use the current powers of the Scottish Parliament to try to do something different from Conservative austerity. The result of that is a Scottish Finance Minister and a Scottish Government just managing that Conservative austerity. As I said earlier, when faced with the choice of managing the Tory austerity or creating a different future for Scotland, we have chosen to create that different future I was explaining the principles behind the Scotland Bill. However, before the Scotland Bill can be enacted they must be underpinned by a new fiscal framework for Scotland. That runs alongside the legislative process, which is slightly different from what happened with the Scotland Act in 2012 It is crucial to state that the Smith commission stipulated that the Barnett formula would be retained as the mechanism for determining Scotland’s block grant. That is not in question in this debate. However, Scotland’s block grant will need to be adjusted to reflect both the new tax-raising powers and new expenditure responsibilities that are being devolved, and that is at the heart of today’s debate. Until that revised framework is agreed by the UK and Scottish Governments, the Scotland Bill cannot be enacted and the new powers and responsibilities it transfers cannot be implemented. We need a negotiated agreement in order to move on, otherwise the new powers will lie dormant and Scotland’s financial position in the future will remain very uncertain.
Public Finances: Scotland — House of Commons, 2016-02-03
Topic: Macroeconomics
Ian Murray (Labour, Centre-left): There is consensus across the entire Chamber that the Barnett formula should stay in place. It was in the vow signed by all the major party leaders who went into the general election. The Smith agreement has been signed by all five political parties, and that includes the maintenance of the Barnett formula. The hon. Gentleman, from the Conservative Back Benches, wants to renew and review the Barnett formula, which means only the Labour party in this Chamber will defend it. It would seem that the policy from the Conservative Back Benches is to do away with Barnett and that the Scottish National party wants full fiscal autonomy, which would also do away with the Barnett formula. We will defend the Barnett formula, because it is in the interests of our constituents to do so.