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Hostile tax laws could drive big companies overseas

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    Hostile tax laws could drive big companies overseas

    Hostile tax laws could drive big companies overseas (The Times)
    BRITAIN’S "antagonistic" anti-tax avoidance laws could drive some of the biggest companies overseas, one of the leading tax lawyers said yesterday.

    The Times has learnt that at least one FTSE 100 company is investigating domiciling itself outside the UK following an 18-month crackdown by Revenue & Customs on tax avoidance.

    Other companies are so angry at the clampdown on previously accepted business practices that they are refusing to co-operate with Revenue’s attempts to understand corporate tax planning.

    Guy Brannan, head of tax at Linklaters, the City law firm, said that the relocation plans of a number of companies were at a "pretty advanced stage".

    The torrent of anti-avoidance legislation began in 2004, shortly after the Government introduced laws forcing companies to disclose how they minimised their tax bills. The disclosure regime is currently being extended, raising fears of even more stringent anti-avoidance rules.
    The existence of anti-avoidance legislation proves that tax legislation is over-complex and out of control.

    #2
    Erm, but the UKs hostile tax laws also drive a good number of small and medium sized companies off shore as well. So should it not be easier and more acurate to say 'Hostile tax laws drive companies overseas'.

    'refusing to co-operate with Revenue’s attempts to understand corporate tax planning', rather long winded way of saying 'civil disobediance'.

    In fact you could boil the whole thing down to 'Gordo is dropping us in the brownstuff' and everyone could just nod sagely as they turn to page 3.
    Insanity: repeating the same actions, but expecting different results.
    threadeds website, and here's my blog.

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      #3
      How funny is that...passing legislation forcing companies to divulge how they minimise their tax exposure!

      Mailman

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        #4
        BRITAIN’S "antagonistic" anti-tax avoidance laws could drive some of the biggest companies overseas, one of the leading tax lawyers said yesterday.
        It already started a few years ago - it's called offshoring. Companies save a fortune not just on wages but also rates, tax, Emp NI and lord knows what else the Gov't swipes, not to mention all the suffocating regulations.

        Gordumb Brown is no New Labourite - he pretty much personifies the socialist tax, spend & control ideology. He can't resist it.

        So yes - as small business taxes continue falling alongside personal taxation (as salaries continue stagnating and declining), Gordumb Brown's single dimension brain shouts at him - "must raise tax rates and bring in new taxes to make up the difference."

        The result of course will be even less revenue coming into the Treasury. More Treasury costs as more money is spent on more legal tax cases, more staff in tax officies, more tax officies and ever bigger tax collecting budgets.
        Last edited by BobTheCrate; 17 January 2006, 17:53.

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          #5
          Tax doesn't have to be taxing.

          It says on the telly.

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            #6
            Rejoice!

            Our last years tax money is being used to remind us we will be paying it again this year using expensive TV airtime....

            Wel done the Inland Revenue.


            (P.S can I buy some office space on the cheap?)
            Vieze Oude Man

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              #7
              Hell yeah!


              I think the Caymans are just awesome... especially when they are little and cant bite your leg off....

              Where is Engerland anyways....? Arent we fighting you in Irak?
              Vieze Oude Man

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                #8
                Originally posted by BobTheCrate
                It already started a few years ago - it's called offshoring.
                As I understand it, this is more than offshoring.

                Offshoring, with Indian help centres and Chinese manufacturers for example, has come to mean relocating some of your operations abroad where costs are lower, but remaining as a UK-based company.

                What they are talking about now is relocating the company itself abroad (and effectively onshoring operations back to the UK where necessary).

                This hasn't happened to any significant degree since the 1970s. On that occasion it was also due to government tax policies, and it had a severely detrimental effect on the economy.

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                  #9
                  If youd been able to watch Newsnight on BBC2 Scotland you would have seen another windfall tax being levied on oil companies exploring the North Sea oil fields.... justified by the price of a barrel of oil globally, not the price of a extracting a barrel of oil in the North Sea...

                  I had hoped the guy representing the oil companies would ask 'is this to pay for Iraq...?'

                  The nu lies crony wheeled in to recite 'fairness' ad infinitum was just the usual talking head. Apparently its all to pay for the NHS etc .... funny how every single tax rise 'pays for hospitals', but we still need PFI.....
                  Vieze Oude Man

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                    #10
                    Originally posted by mcquiggd
                    Apparently its all to pay for the NHS etc .... funny how every single tax rise 'pays for hospitals', but we still need PFI.....
                    Labour are threatening to pull the plug on the Royal London and Barts in east London. That will save over a billion.

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