Kieran Quinn, chair of the Local Authority Pension Fund Forum (LAPFF), confirmed that the forum launched its corporate tax transparency initiative (CTTI) having written to every FTSE 100 company in late March seeking technical information via ten detailed taxation questions around tax-related governance and accounting practices, taxation risk management and minimisation strategies. The LAPFF initiative is part of wider efforts by the £160bn pension fund group to lift corporate transparency around global tax practices.
In his feature interview with the FT, Quinn provided both a rebuke and some reassurance to the FTSE 100: ‘Clearly some of the [examples of tax minimisation] we have heard about recently are not just about clever accountancy — in our view it is very close to criminal activity,’ Mr Quinn said in reference to the ‘Luxleaks’ and ‘Swiss Leaks’ international tax avoidance scandals uncovered by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ).
The current initiative follows from late 2014 where LAPFF and the Quebec-based pension fund Batirente, the UK’s Royal London Asset Management, French based Triodis Investment Management and Parisian manager Ofi Asset Management called on the leaders of G20 economies to back the OECD BEPS action plan and work together on global tax transparency and modernisation of the international tax framework.
The LAPFF signalled their intentions to continue with tax transparency activities in 2015 with the chair’s statement in the 2014 annual report indicating that LAPFF intended to provide a ‘strong investor voice on sound governance practices for tax planning disclosure’ during 2015.
‘The [CTTI question bank] letters form part of an information-gathering exercise to enable the LAPFF to identify which companies are the leaders and laggards in terms of appropriate tax arrangements’, Quinn added. ‘We are not setting traps here. No one is trying to catch anybody out. We are genuinely trying to have a conversation with these companies to understand what resources they put [towards managing their tax affairs].’
Kieran Quinn, chair of the Local Authority Pension Fund Forum (LAPFF), confirmed that the forum launched its corporate tax transparency initiative (CTTI) having written to every FTSE 100 company in late March seeking technical information via ten detailed taxation questions around tax-related governance and accounting practices, taxation risk management and minimisation strategies. The LAPFF initiative is part of wider efforts by the £160bn pension fund group to lift corporate transparency around global tax practices.
In his feature interview with the FT, Quinn provided both a rebuke and some reassurance to the FTSE 100: ‘Clearly some of the [examples of tax minimisation] we have heard about recently are not just about clever accountancy — in our view it is very close to criminal activity,’ Mr Quinn said in reference to the ‘Luxleaks’ and ‘Swiss Leaks’ international tax avoidance scandals uncovered by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ).
The current initiative follows from late 2014 where LAPFF and the Quebec-based pension fund Batirente, the UK’s Royal London Asset Management, French based Triodis Investment Management and Parisian manager Ofi Asset Management called on the leaders of G20 economies to back the OECD BEPS action plan and work together on global tax transparency and modernisation of the international tax framework.
The LAPFF signalled their intentions to continue with tax transparency activities in 2015 with the chair’s statement in the 2014 annual report indicating that LAPFF intended to provide a ‘strong investor voice on sound governance practices for tax planning disclosure’ during 2015.
‘The [CTTI question bank] letters form part of an information-gathering exercise to enable the LAPFF to identify which companies are the leaders and laggards in terms of appropriate tax arrangements’, Quinn added. ‘We are not setting traps here. No one is trying to catch anybody out. We are genuinely trying to have a conversation with these companies to understand what resources they put [towards managing their tax affairs].’
