But you are. HM Gov recently signed a record order with the factory at Bristol to supply the engines for some new planes.

Since when has that had any bearing on media outrage?

Presumably Rolls Royce are employing similar mechanisms to those used by Starbucks, Amazon et al. I await Cameron's howls of outrage at this deceit being perpetrated by what is an ostensibly British company.

This sort of bad press won't help in their efforts to get those with influence over the SFO to persuade it to tread softly in their ongoing corruption enquiries...

Why are they ordering records from Rolls Royce ?
Could this be why HMV went to the wall ?

Records? Rolls Royce, Rose Royce easy mistake to make. Not sure the cars they were washing were Rolls Royce.

Easy mistake to make,

somebody told Gideon that they had loads of brass

Not exactly zero tax but [url=http://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2013/03/04/hsbcs-uk-tax-bill-looks-to-be-500-million-less-than-id-exepct/looks like HSBC decided to pay tax elsewhere too[/url

Hasn't he answered his own question? 13% of the company's income arises in the UK, which emplos 18% of the workforce. As the bank is big in the Far East where wages are a fraction of the UK, that 18% workforce probably respresnts a much higher proportion of the company's cost base. So, HSBC's contention that they've lost money in the UK (and US) looks reasonable.

More generally, nearly all FTSE 100 companies a global enterprises which are headquartered here for histoic reasons. Most earn on a modest proportion of their revenues here (which partly accounts for why the FTSE 100 index has been rising rapidly whilst the UK economy is in the doldrums. The companies' econoic fortunes are largely not dependent on their UK operations.

[url=http://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2013/03/06/looking-forward-to-the-stock-market-crash-that-is-coming-our-way-soon/Best get ready for the next crash[/url (from the same author: the comments are interesting

Of course it will drop back signifcantly. The reason, in my long-held view and what he hints at, is that there is a constant stream of money coming into the system as savings / pension contributions. It has to find a home. The main categories will be shares, bonds or commercial property. So they get asset price booms in each and then they drop back when their values become out of line with some level of "reality" (whatever that may be).

The fact is that historically (no guarantee in future) stockmarket returns have far-performed property, etc over the long-term. There is a good reason to suppose they always will under our economic system - namely that in the long-term asset prices should bear some relation to GDP. as companies are the main driver of economic performance the leading ones should outperform GDP growth slightly. In today's world "our" leading comany's derive large parts of their revenue in areas of the world enjoying must faster GDP growth than the UK (even in our better times) so you could expect their performance to exceed UK GDP quite significantly over time. The same cannot be said for other asset classes such as property whose value is likely to be more atuned to UK economic growth.

It would only look reasonable if their UK (or US) operations have actually lost money. Which if they had they wouldn't be paying UK Corporation Tax.

They MUST pay tax. End of. It's disgraceful the way larger corporations seem to have governments by the short and curlies, often threatening to close places down and thereby increasing unemployment.




Or. You could always buy shares in them. A quick look shows they've more than doubled in the last year. Rich people would have and pension funds probably have also.

Did you read what he wrote? It is essentially about how multinational companies attribute profits across the group and his conclusion is the UK should be attributed with a much higher profit than it has been.

Regardless of that HSBC is head-quartered here which means it's a UK bank which in turn means if it ever needed bailing out it would be the UK who would have to do it. It also means as it has it's HQ here there are extra costs on the balance sheet which will reduce profits somewhat.

We all know companies can offset costs and losses against profit and in HSBC's case they faced a bill for miss-selling PPI to the tune of £1.2bn . However the issue is not that companies [ican[/i offset this or that against profit in accounting terms but [ishould[/i a UK company that makes over £13bn profit be allowed to use such practices to pay next to no tax here?

The same applies to Rolls Royce. The old argument of "Well it's not illegal and they are just maximising shareholder benefits" is past it's sell by date politically.

In principle, a company can still lose money and pay corporation tax (they do not get taxed on accounting profits).

Have they lost money in the UK?

I read somewhere that their UK and US operations had not been profitable. Whether that was all activities and whether or not it was an actual loss I do not know as I guess you don't. However, it is entirely feasible given the amount of losses RBS has incurred. Furthermore, as I said it could pay tax here without making a profit. As was said above £1.2 B / $ 1.2 B of fines would reduced accounting profits but not taxable ones. So they could make, say 0.5B loss here but pay tax on 0.7 B (all other things being equal).

I did and what he wrote, as I explained, was deliberatley slanted to achieve a conclusion he wanted. If his averaging had have been detrimental to his argument he would have considered things on a more realistic basis. He should know better.

Until there is a global tax system that will be the case. Governments choose to be grabbed by the short and curiles they can easily be tough if they wish. Look at the way the US has treated European banks, BP, etc. The fact that our government is so soft is not the fault of the companies it is due to inept politicians and a wet electorate.

Yeah, I know. Poor form ain't it?

If his averaging had have been detrimental to his argument he wouldn't have had an argument. It's either reasonable to apply the formula he did to apportion profits or it isn't but the results of applying it are as he stated.

It is not reasonable. Therefore he has no point.

What is a good point is the one he makes about country by country reporting. That would increase transparency and catch the rogues, especially if management charges, royalties, intra-country transfers had to be spelt out in detail and if transactions with low-tax jurisdictions had to be shown and summarised as to their effect.

So a bank that gets caught out laundering $hundreds of billions and pays the US a $1.2bn fine, then swans around shifting money across borders to minimise tax payments, awards its CEO with a bonus? The cu[in[/it should be in jail.

[url=http://www.businessinsider.com/elizabeth-warren-hsbc-money-laundering-2013-3At least Elizabeth Warren seems to be gunning for 'em[/url

That's because no one normal-sized country can afford to go it alone ... but if a group of them decided to do something about it, their collective elbow could have the power ... they could tell any company to get stuffed unless they toe the line.

It would have to be a large collective.

Like the EU, for example.

That is a matter of opinion and I would say he does have a point. He is simply applying known formula to illustrate what contribution of group profits should be attributed to the UK.



And because it isn't transparent he made his calculations.

Haven't this bunch of shysters decided against legislating for transparent reporting because it would be "too difficult for multi-nationals to administer"? Dodging the fooking tax seems to present them with little difficulty