Skatteflukt fra Storbritannia snyter det offentlige for inntekter som
sannsynligvis tilsvarer to offentlige helsebudsjetter (NHS = National Health
Service):
>Informed opinion is that the UK may be losing some £85bn in tax
>revenue each year, nearly twice the annual budget of the NHS.
Se nedenfor.
Trond Andresen
*********************************************************************
An international clampdown on tax avoidance is long overdue
Prem Sikka
[Prem Sikka is professor of accounting at Essex University and
co-author of No Accounting for Tax Havens, published by the
Association for Accountancy and Business Affairs, PO Box 5874,
Basildon SS16 5FR.]
Friday April 12, 2002
The Guardian
We live in unethical times. Those paying income tax join the NHS
queues and wait on hospital trolleys. They also face disappearing
railways, gridlocked roads, measly pensions and a crumbling education
system. In contrast, millionaires and corporate barons avoid taxes by
claiming non-domiciled tax status or setting up companies in offshore
tax havens. As a result, ordinary people are forced to pay a higher
share of their income in taxes, all for a worse social
infrastructure. The rich are rewarded with knighthoods and seats in
the House of Lords to enable them to draft and pass friendly
legislation.
This game is being played not only by Hans Rausing, but also by
others, including Sir Richard Branson, Labour's Lord Levy and
Geoffrey Robinson and the Conservatives' Lord Ashcroft. They all use
offshore tax havens to slash their tax bills. Many major companies -
including Virgin, Microsoft, General Motors, Kodak, News Corp,
Boeing, Chevron, Northern & Shell and Portland Investment - use
offshore tax havens to avoid tax obligations in host countries.
Almost one-third of the world's gross domestic product passes through
such tax havens as Belize, Guernsey, Bermuda, the Isle of Man, the
Bahamas and the Cayman Islands. Places like Belize offer secrecy and
do not recognise judgments and claims from other jurisdictions. They
specialise in opaque corporate and financial structures, with no
annual company reports or disclosures. Insurance companies are
flocking to offshore tax havens because they do not have any minimum
capitalisation requirements. In times of crisis, many would find it
difficult to meet claims.
There are no taxes on offshore trusts and international business
companies, as long as they do not trade with anyone on the islands.
Other taxes are artificially low. So companies set up brass-plate
operations and book their profits and income there, even though their
economic activity takes place in London or New York.
For the period 1992-99, the owners of the Daily Express paid tax at
the rate of just 3.6%, compared with the normal corporation tax rate
of 30%. Rupert Murdoch's media empire has hardly paid any taxes in
the UK since 1988. A taskforce of investigators from Australia, the
UK, Canada and the US was formed to investigate why News Corp pays
virtually no taxes. Politicians currying favour with the
Murdoch-owned newspapers were fearful of a backlash, and the
investigation was dropped.
Nearly a quarter of the US top 500 companies paid no taxes in 1998.
Enron traded through 900 offshore companies and wiped off its tax
liabilities in the US, India and Hungary. Ingersoll-Rand pays Bermuda
around £20,000 a year for a mailbox facility and is able to shave
£30m off its tax obligations. Offshore financial engineering may be
costing the US taxpayer $70bn a year in lost tax revenues. According
to Oxfam, the use of offshore havens by global corporations is
depriving developing countries of some $50bn of revenues each year.
Informed opinion is that the UK may be losing some £85bn in tax
revenue each year, nearly twice the annual budget of the NHS.
Some of the biggest winners from the tax avoidance schemes are
accountants. Major accountancy firms are now helping the Treasury to
write tax laws, which will no doubt generate even more business for
them.
The ability of transnational companies and their owners to use tax
havens for financial engineering creates a serious distortion to the
domestic and global marketplace. It undermines social infrastructure,
local communities, businesses and national tax policies. These
companies have gained a significant tax advantage over their
nationally based competitors. Local competition, no matter whether it
is more efficient or innovative than its offshore rival, competes on
an uneven field. The logic of this uneven competition requires either
that all businesses ultimately move offshore in order to compete on a
level basis, or that onshore tax authorities adjust their tax regimes
to place a greater burden on other factors of production,
particularly employees, and on to consumption.
Britain is the biggest protector and nurturer of tax havens. Most are
UK crown dependencies. Until the recent pressure from the OECD, the
government has done little to reform them. On the domestic front, the
government can levy taxes on the rich by estimating the income needed
to maintain their lavish lifestyle. It can base corporate taxes on
the estimated level of economic activity and market share enjoyed by
corporations. It can refuse to provide government contracts to
companies whichabdicate their social responsibilities. It can abolish
the farce of non-domiciled and non-resident tax status.
But the major corporations have bought out the political system. The
political will to tackle this major social abuse is missing. How long
will ordinary, hard-working people continue to pay ever-rising taxes
to indulge the selfish games of a rich elite?
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