argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Finance (No. 3) Bill — House of Commons, 2018-11-20
Topic: Macroeconomics
Anneliese Jane Dodds (Labour, Centre-left): Of course we need a business-friendly tax environment, but we should also recognise, just as I find when I talk to many international businesses, as I do in my shadow ministerial position, that the vast majority of businesses want to be compliant. Sadly, a small number of firms are not necessarily complying with the letter of the law and some are also not complying with the spirit of the law. That is leading to a situation where our public services are starved of the funding we need, which has a huge impact on business, as I am sure the hon. Gentleman is aware through his discussions with businesses in his constituency Let me return to the matter of overseas territories, which strangely appear to be referred to in pictorial form in material released by Conservative central office. This Government were forced kicking and screaming by this House to require our overseas territories to produce public registers of beneficial ownership, but I understand that all that has happened since the vote that forced that change in policy is one conference call, leading to a vague commitment to convene a technical working group—but it is not going to meet until 2019. So we have had many months since that vote in this House but almost no action. In addition, rather than fulfil the commitments the Opposition were given that our Government would work with Crown dependencies towards transparency, tax treaties were presented to this House last week that included no such provisions whatsoever The Minister has, as ever, opined that his Government have reduced the tax gap, and indeed other Members have just referred to that. I am sure, however, that he will not illuminate us with the fact that his Government’s tax gap measure excludes the costs of profit shifting and that it starts from the assumption that companies are declaring the correct amount of tax, which surely begs the question. The tax gap for this Government is assessed on the basis of whether Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs has found errors or evidence of avoidance on tax returns, an approach that has rightly been criticised by the Public Accounts Committee, given that it leads to a situation where much of the tax lost through avoidance simply does not count as part of the tax gap. The Government’s tax gap does not appear to include cases of avoidance or evasion that do not fall under existing legislation, so it fails to capture numerous loopholes that continue to be exploited simply because they are exactly that: loopholes.
Finance (No. 3) Bill — House of Commons, 2018-11-20
Topic: Macroeconomics
Anneliese Jane Dodds (Labour, Centre-left): I am always delighted to hear from the hon. Gentleman, but when he talks about the tax-gap measurement, he is talking about his Government’s tax-gap measurement, not one that is universally accepted. In fact, it is quite the opposite, and many alternative measures suggest that much larger amounts of tax are being avoided and, indeed, that larger sums could be rectified if tax evasion was dealt with. Yet again, we hear this comment about the cut to the corporation tax rate. I am sorry to sound like a stuck record, but I have to remind the hon. Gentleman that every expert commentator on this matter has intimated that the rise in the corporation tax take is not because of the cut to the rate and that, in fact, had the rate not been cut, more revenue would have accrued to the Treasury. As I will go on to discuss, that revenue could have been used to support public services and social security for our constituents.
Finance (No. 3) Bill — House of Commons, 2018-11-20
Topic: Macroeconomics
Anneliese Jane Dodds (Labour, Centre-left): I am sorry that the hon. Gentleman views as a badge of pride the recent growth statistics. I would never talk down the British economy—it has a huge amount of promise—but I am deeply concerned about the fact that our growth statistics, particularly for the future, have been revised down. For next year and the following year, I believe that they are 1.6% and 1.4%, so they have been revised down. In the past, in normal times, we would have viewed growth statistics of that kind as a failure. Of course I am pleased that our economy is finally growing again—it was, of course, growing when Labour left office—but I am none the less deeply disappointed that we are not reaching the same levels of growth as many of our competitor countries.
Finance (No. 3) Bill — House of Commons, 2018-11-20
Topic: Macroeconomics
Anneliese Jane Dodds (Labour, Centre-left): With the Committee’s permission, I shall continue with my comments We need a far more serious and engaged approach to countering tax avoidance and evasion. Our amendments are an attempt to provide that—at least within the scope of the limited measures in the Bill. First, with amendments 3 and 4, we are calling for public registers for beneficiaries of trusts who have relocated or plan to relocate to other EEA countries and who seek to defer their corporation tax exit charges, or those relating to capital gains tax, through a payment plan, as the Minister intimated. The Government’s action in this policy area has been necessitated by recent decisions of the European Court of Justice, which considered the compatibility of member state exit charges with article 49 of the treaty on the functioning of the European Union As the Minister intimated, the measures in the Bill will enable those who adopt an exit charge payment plan to pay in six equal instalments, albeit with interest. Given that this approach is necessitated by EU law and applies to individuals and trustees who move to another EU or EEA country, and given that some Government Members sadly flirt recklessly with the prospect of a no-deal Brexit, I would have expected the Government to explain what might happen in this policy area as our relationship with the EU changes. That was not the case in respect of the information about these measures that we were given; nor does anything in the Bill lead us towards greater transparency for trusts, which is desperately needed As of January this year, all trusts that pay beyond a very modest level of tax have had to register with HMRC through its trust registration service, but that is a private register, not a public one. The new iteration of the EU’s anti-money laundering legislation will require changes in the UK approach. First, it makes business-like trusts and those managed in the EU subject to reporting requirements, so potentially enlarging the category of trusts that have to register. Secondly, it enables parties with a legitimate interest to access information about those trusts—not just law enforcement agencies as currently—although the decision on who qualifies as having such a legitimate interest will be under the discretion of member states. Finally, this new legislation requires trusts owning EU companies to disclose full information about trustees, settlors and beneficiaries.
Finance (No. 3) Bill — House of Commons, 2018-11-20
Topic: Macroeconomics
Helen Catherine Goodman (Labour, Centre-left): My hon. Friend is making a fantastically good forensic case this afternoon, but I am still not sure whether I fully grasp the point. Is she saying that the Government have still not set out how they intend to collaborate with the European Union on information sharing for tax purposes, and/or is she saying that this will be an excuse for a lighter tax regime in this country and in the other EU member states, which will no doubt be taken into account when the future framework is being negotiated?
Finance (No. 3) Bill — House of Commons, 2018-11-20
Topic: Macroeconomics
Anneliese Jane Dodds (Labour, Centre-left): I am very grateful to my hon. Friend for her comments. In fact, I will go on to say both, because that is precisely our concern. So far, the Government have been incredibly vague about what commitments they will make on tax matters in relation to preventing avoidance and evasion. Furthermore, we have had some very, very unhelpful comments—to put it extremely mildly—from the Government about whether they might seek to undercut the rest of the EU on tax matters. I know that my hon. Friend follows these matters very closely, as she does money laundering matters, where I argue that we have not been clear enough about how we will collaborate with others into the future Our new clause 5 is directed at another Government blank spot: the distributional impact of their tax measures. It would require an equality impact assessment of the Government’s tax avoidance measures in relation to child poverty, household income levels, people with protected characteristics, and our nations and regions. That assessment is necessary because of the continuing leakage from our tax system owing to avoidance as well as evasion. Failure to deal with avoidance has put pressure on the rest of the tax system, which, as I have just mentioned, has been exacerbated by unnecessary tax cuts to the very best-off people and to profitable corporations. As many independent observers have noted, these tax cuts have tended to benefit the very best-off people and often men rather than women, while £4 out of every £5 cut from Government budgets has fallen on women’s shoulders. The Women’s Budget Group has shown how, out of all household types, lone mothers have been the hardest hit by cuts to services and tax and benefit changes, followed by lone fathers and single female pensioners. Among lone mothers, it is black and minority ethnic women who have lost the most.
Finance (No. 3) Bill — House of Commons, 2018-11-20
Topic: Macroeconomics
Anneliese Jane Dodds (Labour, Centre-left): I am grateful for the intervention, because it enables me to make the answer clear. Absolutely not. We are asking for something very simple. Sadly, it is something that this Government have not been willing to provide, which is the information about tax incidence. We do not have that information to the extent that the House needs. The process of analysis has been left to bodies such as the Women’s Budget Group and the Child Poverty Action Group. They have to crunch the data. That is an activity that should be carried out by Government, so that we as Members are able appropriately to scrutinise their policy and practice. We do not have that information at the moment.
Finance (No. 3) Bill — House of Commons, 2018-11-20
Topic: Macroeconomics
Anneliese Jane Dodds (Labour, Centre-left): I fear that the hon. Gentleman has yet again made the point for himself. This Government’s approach to taxation so far has affected different groups disproportionately. We can call that discrimination, unequal impact or whatever we like. The fact is that we found out about that not through Government figures, but due to analysis conducted by other bodies. We had a lengthy debate about this during the last Finance Bill, and I am very happy to run through all the arguments again. I suggest, however, that it might be easier for him to read analysis by those expert bodies, which will make the point more eloquently than I could.
Finance (No. 3) Bill — House of Commons, 2018-11-20
Topic: Social Welfare
Anneliese Jane Dodds (Labour, Centre-left): I appreciate the hon. Lady’s comments, but is she aware that under her party’s Government, moving into work is sadly no longer the route out of poverty for huge numbers of working women? For example, two thirds of children living in poverty are in working households. Previously, someone who could obtain a job with enough hours would be able to climb out of poverty. That is no longer the case in the UK. Furthermore, as I just mentioned, those who have analysed the impact of tax and benefit changes on different genders have shown very clearly—it is simple to look at the statistics—that £4 out of every £5 cut by this Government have been cut from the pockets of women and from the services that women use.
Finance (No. 3) Bill — House of Commons, 2018-11-20
Topic: Macroeconomics
Anneliese Jane Dodds (Labour, Centre-left): I know that the hon. Gentleman has worked on the issue of cuts to HMRC’s capacity, as have many Members across the House. I will return to that important issue soon, because sadly the reality does not reflect the rather rosy picture that we were provided with by the Minister on that subject I return to the distributional impact of this Government’s tax measures. We had an interesting discussion about fairness following some comments by the hon. Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart), who is no longer in his place. The Minister intimated that he was in favour of a fair tax system and said that the wealthiest people pay a large proportion of all tax. He is absolutely right: the wealthiest people do pay a large proportion of income tax. That is because of how wealthy they are. However, if we look at the impact of the tax system on different income groups, we find—I should not say "we" because it is the Office for National Statistics that has discovered this—that the best-off 10% of people pay less of their income in tax than the worst-off 10%. I note that the Conservatives did not contest this statistic when it was mentioned in the House yesterday. Surely that is a ringing indictment of their approach to taxation.
Finance (No. 3) Bill — House of Commons, 2018-11-20
Topic: Social Welfare
Anneliese Jane Dodds (Labour, Centre-left): It is always a pleasure to hear from the hon. Gentleman, who is always a very friendly face. Sadly, however—I feel bad doing this—I do have to correct him on two of the points that he mentioned. He stated that the poorest people will not pay any tax at all. That is simply not the case. Of course, they will pay—[Interruption.] No, no—he said "any tax". Let us be clear: of course, large numbers of very badly off people pay a lot of value added tax, which is a regressive tax, even with the exemptions that apply to it In addition to that, increasing numbers of low-income people across this country are now paying council tax, many of them for the first time, because of the swingeing cuts that the hon. Gentleman’s Government have delivered to local authorities’ budgets for council tax relief. So we now have very large numbers of very-low-income people being taken to court because they are unable to pay their council tax. That situation is novel in our country but some might say it approximates things that happened back in the 1980s, which I am sure that the hon. Gentleman is too young to remember but which the history books have certainly not forgotten We also need a thorough understanding of how the failure to tackle tax avoidance affects our different regions, given that austerity’s impact on incomes has been strongest in areas that were already struggling economically. We need a thorough impact assessment of the impact that the failure to deal with tax avoidance is having on child poverty. Yesterday Ministers tried to deflect attention from their record on poverty by using only figures on absolute poverty. They never speak about the measure that is instead used by most academics and experts—relative poverty—because they know that more children are now living in relative poverty under their watch: almost a third of children, in fact. The problem is such that the chief executive of the Child Poverty Action Group has described the Conservative Government as being "in denial" on child poverty I will explain why we need to look at relative poverty. We should not look simply at whether people are destitute, as measured by absolute poverty, even though, sadly, many are having to resort to food banks for bare necessities; we also need to look at what people’s incomes are in relation to the living standards that everyone else enjoys. That is why the concept of relative poverty measures whether people are poor in relation to median-income people. Relative poverty matters because it shows whether people can afford to live a decent life.
Finance (No. 3) Bill — House of Commons, 2018-11-20
Topic: Social Welfare
Anneliese Jane Dodds (Labour, Centre-left): No, it does not. Absolute poverty measures whether people can afford the bare necessities of life. To be able to participate in society—in their communities—they cannot fall so massively behind the median income. We are talking about families whose children cannot go to birthday parties for their friends because they cannot afford a card and a present. For me, that is a failure of our society, and it is to do with relative poverty, not absolute poverty. Over 4 million children in this country are classified as living in relative poverty, and that number is rising, not diminishing.
Finance (No. 3) Bill — House of Commons, 2018-11-20
Topic: Macroeconomics
Anneliese Jane Dodds (Labour, Centre-left): I will press on for now Labour’s new clause 6 would require a review of the Government’s measures presented in this Finance Bill on tackling avoidance, evasion and the tax gap. It would enable us to consider whether the Government’s reactive approach is sufficient, when many of us suspect that it is anything but. Here we are reminded of one of the biggest gaps in this Bill. Despite much fanfare in the Budget, and indeed in the Minister’s comments just now, there is no digital services tax presented in this Finance Bill. Instead, there will be a consultation on the Government’s approach. Of course, even what is in that consultation is less stringent than European-level proposals, and it includes giant loopholes in its safe harbour and double threshold elements The hon. Member for Walsall North (Eddie Hughes)—who is still in his place, which is fantastic—talked about the regime for intangible assets. He is absolutely right that we need tax authorities to deal with these issues more appropriately. When I think about the major strides that have been made on taxing profits arising out of those intangible assets, I think of the cases that have been taken by the European Commissioner for Competition against Starbucks and others. She showed, for example, that Starbucks’ intellectual property relating to its roasting processes was not based in the Netherlands, as it claimed, and that that was just a ruse to avoid tax.
Finance (No. 3) Bill — House of Commons, 2018-11-20
Topic: Macroeconomics
Anneliese Jane Dodds (Labour, Centre-left): That appears to be a slightly different point from the one the hon. Gentleman was making a moment ago. None the less, I agree that this is a work in progress. Sadly, our Government and Conservative Members in other jurisdictions have not always been promoting that process. I gently remind him that his colleagues in the European Parliament have consistently voted against measures that would increase tax transparency and have consistently not supported attempts to hold inquiries into, for example, the Panama papers and the Luxembourg leaks. I hope that, at some point, they will catch up with the need for more tax transparency and enforcement. Perhaps he could encourage them; that would be enormously helpful It is positive to see in this Finance Bill that the Government have adopted some of Labour’s proposed measures in our tax transparency and enforcement programme. They have finally seen the light on giving HMRC back preferred creditor status. They appear to be undertaking some action against umbrella agencies exploiting the employment allowance. They also appear to be looking towards creating an offshore property levy, although it is unclear to me, even following the Minister’s comments, how appropriately that will be targeted, given that it lacks the precision of Labour’s proposed oligarch property levy. But there are few additional measures in the Bill beyond what is already required by either the EU or the OECD, showing an abject lack of ambition and commitment from this Conservative Government. Underlying all this, as the hon. Member for Glasgow South West (Chris Stephens) said, is the Government’s failure to appropriately staff HMRC to deal with tax avoidance and evasion and their determination to press ahead with its reorganisation, despite evidence that it is haemorrhaging experienced staff. Some additional money has been provided, which the Minister referred to in his speech. However, we still lack clarity on exactly where that money will go. The Government have committed to provide 5,000 additional customs staff. I still do not know where they will go. We are looking at a situation where, due to the regional reorganisation, there will not be a single HMRC hub along any of the south coast or beyond the central belt. Where customs officials will go is very unclear In addition, any additional money that is being provided by the Government, or at least much of it, will in any case just backfill what has been sucked out through the recruitment costs necessitated by the need to replace staff who have been lost due to the reorganisation process.
Finance (No. 3) Bill — House of Commons, 2018-11-20
Topic: Macroeconomics
Anneliese Jane Dodds (Labour, Centre-left): I discussed a few moments ago how many of those measures are in fact disputed. It would be interesting if the hon. Lady could break down that figure. I suspect many of us would not agree that it reflects an accurate representation of the tax lost. In fact, as I mentioned, when profit shifting is taken into account, that figure is likely to be much larger I am very positive about the potential of our economy, and the potential of our tax officers, but I think they are being presented with an impossible task. I have talked to many of them—dozens of them—and they are very concerned about the future. They want to do a decent job, but they are being prevented from doing so a lot of the time, sadly, due to the Government’s determination to press ahead with this reorganisation programme.
Finance (No. 3) Bill — House of Commons, 2018-11-20
Topic: Macroeconomics
Anneliese Jane Dodds (Labour, Centre-left): I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his intervention but, as I have said, some of the new staff coming in are replacing other staff who have been lost. In fact, when we look at those data, we see that over 17,000 staff years of experience in HMRC have been lost through redundancy. I find that many more experienced specialised staff are talking about leaving our Revenue in the future if the Government press ahead with their reorganisation scheme.
Finance (No. 3) Bill — House of Commons, 2018-11-20
Topic: Macroeconomics
James Dolan Cunningham (Labour, Centre-left): We have raised this many times and the hon. Member for Glasgow South West (Chris Stephens) has raised it as well. The Government are reducing the number of tax offices, in actual fact. They are closing the offices in Coventry. I do not know about the constituency of the hon. Member for Walsall North (Eddie Hughes), but people are having to go a long distance—16 miles to Birmingham—to deal with their tax problems.