Five leading tax professionals, including HMRC's Judith Knott, took part in a roundtable discussion on UK tax competitiveness. Much of the discussion, chaired by John Overs, concerned CFC reform and the potential ‘gateway’ test to filter cases out of the regime.
‘One of Britain’s biggest companies may be forced to move abroad if the Government does not abandon the new higher rate of income tax ... Paul Walsh, the chief executive of Diageo, said the 50p rate threatened to cause “long term damage” to Britain’s “competitive edge”.
Robert Gaut and Sarah Gabbai provide a case study setting out the tax issues for a US manufacturing group which migrates its non-US operations to the UK
Ninety-eight of the 100 biggest groups listed on the London stock exchange use tax havens, according to the charity ActionAid, showing ‘just how embedded the use of tax havens is in the structures of nearly all Britain’s biggest companies’.
Sarah Lane reviews the European Commission's proposals, identifying numerous stings in the tail
Opinion among respondents to the recent consultation on a proposed financial transaction tax was ‘strongly polarised’, the European Commission said. Little has changed, judging by initial reaction to the Commission’s detailed proposal for a Council Directive introducing a Europe-wide FTT.
The UK and the US are acutely aware of the need for competitive effective tax rates but, as Steve Edge and Willard Taylor explain, they achieve that result in different ways.
The UK has become less attractive in recent years for firms that ‘rely more’ on capital allowances for plant and machinery and industrial buildings, according to research published by the Oxford University Centre for Business Taxation.