peterms Posted November 13, 2012 Share Posted November 13, 2012 Here are some things about Amazon which their flunky could have told the PAC, but chose not to. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tonyh29 Posted November 13, 2012 Share Posted November 13, 2012 To a simple layman as myself it would appear that if something goes up in price, thats inflation. Fuel has come down in price marginally over the last month or so round here anyway Yeah i got that bit , i should have explained my self a bit clearer I thought tuition fees amounts in comparison to the overall economic picture would be relatively small (i.e pretty much everyone has to eat / use fuel , going to Uni must be quite a low figure all in all) ) or is it because the fees are not paid up front by the student and thus the government takes the initial hit ? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Risso Posted November 13, 2012 Share Posted November 13, 2012 Here are some things about Amazon which their flunky could have told the PAC, but chose not to. What exactly was the point of the PAC? It seems to have been a case of questions being asked by people who didn't know what they were talking about, being answered (or not) by people who either couldn't or wouldn't answer the questions. Whilst there undoubtedly is a question to answer, an aftermoon meeting like the PAC isn't really going to achieve very much in my opinion. It looked nothing more than an excuse for the likes of Hodge to score some cheap publicity points. And it also seems to me that Google and Amazon etc seem to be easy targets because they are high profile names, whereas there are probably hundreds of companies with multi-million and billion pound turnovers who don't pay much in the way of corporation tax. Like the aforementioned Stemcor for example, it really would be a very good idea for somebody to do a full investigation into their activities. For some reason though only high profile companies seem to make the news in cases like this. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
drat01 Posted November 13, 2012 Share Posted November 13, 2012 re the inflation rate. I wonder why the cynic in me starts to question previous rates September's CPI inflation rate was the lowest for almost three years, and was significant as it is the month on which rises in many benefits is based Of course that is merely a coincidence .......... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bickster Posted November 13, 2012 Moderator Share Posted November 13, 2012 As it happens Stemcor were in the news yesterday as Hodge nee Oppenheimer was asked the obvious question Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
peterms Posted November 13, 2012 Share Posted November 13, 2012 The point of the PAC and other committees? 1. To offer a way of occupying all those backbenchers who might otherwise be hanging around street corners, causing trouble for the whips office. 2. To show the public that MPs are doing something about the issue. 3. To raise the profile of the issue among MPs. 4. To give PR opportunities for MPs - probably more chance of coverage than from things they say in the chamber. But the good things that might come out of it include more (and more critical) press coverage, questions about why HMRC have been so soft on the issue, understanding that the tax burden dodged by these firms falls on everyone else instead. So even if the mechanism isn't very effective as a means of getting at the facts, it still serves a purpose. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Risso Posted November 13, 2012 Share Posted November 13, 2012 As it happens Stemcor were in the news yesterday as Hodge nee Oppenheimer was asked the obvious question She should have to answer the questions in front of the PAC the same as the Google representative. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bickster Posted November 13, 2012 Moderator Share Posted November 13, 2012 She should have to answer the questions in front of the PAC the same as the Google representative. Why? She's a very minor shareholder. It's her father and Brother who own and run the company. Its a bit like asking Tony from the pub to explain the finances of LLoydsTSB because he's had a few shares in the bank for about ten years Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
peterms Posted November 13, 2012 Share Posted November 13, 2012 Why? She's a very minor shareholder. It's her father and Brother who own and run the company. Its a bit like asking Tony from the pub to explain the finances of LLoydsTSB because he's had a few shares in the bank for about ten years Very different. It's a family firm, and she might reasonably be thought to have an interest in possible future inheritance, quite apart from the direct current interest of her blood relatives. It seems to me the issue is one of probity and possible conflict of interest between her role as someone making public policy on taxdodging and someone who stands to benefit from what may be suspiciously low tax payments by the firm, not one for the PAC to investigate the firm itself. HMRC staff should be investigating it, though. The Osborne family firm is a similar case. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tonyh29 Posted November 13, 2012 Share Posted November 13, 2012 Why? She's a very minor shareholder. It's her father and Brother who own and run the company. Its a bit like asking Tony from the pub to explain the finances of LLoydsTSB because he's had a few shares in the bank for about ten years sickapedia always use "Dave" as their token name , is Tony the VT equivalent :-) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Risso Posted November 13, 2012 Share Posted November 13, 2012 Very different. It's a family firm, and she might reasonably be thought to have an interest in possible future inheritance, quite apart from the direct current interest of her blood relatives. It seems to me the issue is one of probity and possible conflict of interest between her role as someone making public policy on taxdodging and someone who stands to benefit from what may be suspiciously low tax payments by the firm, not one for the PAC to investigate the firm itself. HMRC staff should be investigating it, though. The Osborne family firm is a similar case. Only if you think that all companies owned by an MP should be investigated as a matter of course. Osborne's company is exceedingly simple. Stemcor is a vast multi-national with all sorts of subsidiaries in low tax jurisdictions. By all means investigate Osborne's company, but I expect that half an hour of going through the books would reveal that it does nothing untoward. Companies that resort to invoice financing as a means of raising funds are usually not doing very well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
peterms Posted November 13, 2012 Share Posted November 13, 2012 The issue for me is that we are engaging in a national discussion which may lead to proposals for changes in currently available methods of tax avoidance, which many people feel comply with the letter but not the spirit of the law. In that situation, any MP with a financial interest in a firm which uses the methods which may be proposed for change (and not just via firms btw), has a clear and direct conflict of interest which may affect, or be thought to affect, how they vote on possible changes. Like any other conflict of interest in public life, that should be declared and publicly known. In this example, it's more opaque than most potential conflicts of interest, because the mechanisms used are often complex and not easy to identify. Perhaps we should put the onus on them to demand to know from firms they have an interest in, exactly which tax saving mechanisms are used by that firm, so that they can declare an interest and not take part in the vote. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
snowychap Posted November 13, 2012 Share Posted November 13, 2012 Yes, there is a UK company, and US company, both of who who make sales. The consolidated accounts are produced by a UK company. Indeed. And the general point (i.e. nothing to do with Osborne and Little but they were a good example in that it isn't just one UK company but one UK and one US all rolled up in to a UK group co) is that adding layers makes things more opaque. This means that deducing what is actually happening for those outside the loop gets more difficult and it also allows more opportunity for what you referred to earlier as 'inter-group naughtiness'. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
snowychap Posted November 13, 2012 Share Posted November 13, 2012 FT has a decent article extract below And if some multinationals pay low levels of corporation tax in the UK and other markets, it is the fault of governments, not businesses. [To the author of the article] By all means lay some of the blame at governments and what they may say behind closed doors but don't use that as a means to exonerate those businesses. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
snowychap Posted November 13, 2012 Share Posted November 13, 2012 sickapedia always use "Dave" as their token name , is Tony the VT equivalent :-) Gotta be now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blandy Posted November 13, 2012 Moderator Share Posted November 13, 2012 [To the author of the article] By all means lay some of the blame at governments and what they may say behind closed doors but don't use that as a means to exonerate those businesses. Any expectation that businesses, by and large, will essentially voluntarily pay more tax than they are legally obliged to under the structures in place would be wildly misplaced. By that measure "exonerate" seems the wrong word, to me. They're not doing anything wrong. Yes it's seen as "unfair". Yes it's not how it should be, but it is the regulatory structures that allow and encourage them to do it that is the problem, not the companies themselves. Businesses don't see themselves as (with the very rare exception) moral institutions. Their purpose is to make money and profit. They do it as cheaply as they can. It's what Capitalism and much human nature leads to, and is about. Luxembourg or Ireland or wherever wants to attract inward investment, it lowers it tax rates, businesses go there, Luxembourg or wherever gets money it wouldn't have had, and they "win" the company pays less tax than if it had gone to germany or the UK or wherever, and they "win". Germany or Uk "loses" on revenue it might feel ought to be paid in that country....but globalism means "tough". Unless nations work together to stop it, it'll carry on. All the rest is just noise to try to shame a few of them into paying a bit more, or make politicians look like they're "doing something". The only other solution is for people to act to boycott them and their products. It may be the best way to encoruage them to change. Hit them in the pocket. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
snowychap Posted November 13, 2012 Share Posted November 13, 2012 Any expectation that businesses, by and large, will essentially voluntarily pay more tax than they are legally obliged to... That, by its very nature, comes at it from the wrong angle. It is not a bottom up process (from zero tax to the destination) but a top down one (from their full liability to the destination). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Risso Posted November 13, 2012 Share Posted November 13, 2012 You make a good point Pete, but if you boycott every organisation with an offshore structure, there won't be a lot left to choose from. The Grauniad, Apple, Microsoft, BP Petrol, Tesco, Granada TV, just about all of the high street banks, all of the mobile phone providers, BAE, M&S, Unilever and so on and so on, all have offshore structures. It would be nice to go back to a society where we buy everything from our local family run high street shop, but it isn't going to happen. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tonyh29 Posted November 13, 2012 Share Posted November 13, 2012 It would be nice to go back to a society where we buy everything from our local family run high street shop, but it isn't going to happen. i did a lot of work with a very big UK company on pretty much that very idea , the idea being that a product was made with local ingredients and also sold local i.e you had local variation of a mainstream product being sold in the North East with different ingredients from a product being sold in the South East which would of course be a better class of animal fed on champagne rather than flat bitter .. thus you were supporting local business when you bough the product in theory people liked the idea , but from a production aspect my view was the concept was very expensive and thus flawed ( and it hasn't' hit the market yet which suggests the bean counters came to the same conclusion) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bickster Posted November 13, 2012 Moderator Share Posted November 13, 2012 i did a lot of work with a very big UK company on pretty much that very idea , the idea being that a product sold in the North East would be made with ingredients from local farms and thus different ingredients from a product being sold in the South East which would be a better class of animal fed on champagne rather than flat bitter .. thus you were supporting local business when you bough the product in theory people liked the idea , but from a production aspect my view was the concept was very expensive and thus flawed ( and it hasn't' hit the market yet which suggests the bean counters came to the same conclusion) This would be some sort of processed food product. I can see why that wouldn't work. In France however all the supermarkets seem to stock local fresh produce, that is definitely something we should do here wherever possible but the Supermarkets with their centralised transport hubs would rather cart food from Newcastle to a distribution hub in Birmingham only to then take it back to Sunderland to sell it, its utter madness. Waitrose actually do have a small "local produce" section in the shop, which is a start, ours sells a few beers it wouldn't normally stock, eccles cakes, Bury black pudding etc Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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