Caroline?s new Tax and Financial Transparency Bill, which could help the UK recover billions of pounds of lost tax by forcing companies to be more transparent in their accounting, is on the agenda for debate in Parliament on Friday (10 June).
The Bill, launched by the Brighton Pavilion MP in March this year, is due for its second reading in the House of Commons ? and will also feature on BBC Radio 4′s Decision Time programme tonight.
The Green MP launched her campaign after posing a number of Parliamentary Questions to the Chancellor, in which she exposed the fact that H M Revenue & Customs is failing to prevent serious tax evasion which could amount to as much as £16 billion in lost tax.
A report published by Tax Research UK in March revealed that around 500,000 companies ?disappeared? from the UK?s Register of Companies in the year to March 2010 ? with billions being lost to the Exchequer as a result.
Caroline believes that urgent measures are needed to stop companies that are formally dissolved from trading fraudulently, thereby undermining honest businesses who do pay their taxes.
She is also calling for a requirement on multinational companies to publish information on where they make their sales, record their profits and pay their taxes, in order to ensure that corporations make a fair and proper contribution to society.
Caroline said: ?The first aim of this Bill is to tackle the scandalous reality that around 500,000 companies every year appear not to be paying tax in the UK.
?Tax Research UK estimate that regulatory failures by H M Revenue & Customs and Companies House mean that around 500,000 companies a year fail to pay their tax or file their accounts.
?A great many are simply struck off the Register of Companies as a result, never to be heard of again. It is thought that up to £16 billion of tax a year might be lost to the country as a result.
?This Bill would ensure that banks have to provide details on all accounts they maintain for companies operating in the UK so that H M Revenue & Customs and Companies House can chase those companies who do not file the returns they?re obliged to make for the missing information ? and the tax they owe.?
She continued: ?Secondly, the bill would force companies to ?publish what tax they pay?, requiring all companies filing accounts in the UK to include a statement on the turnover, pre-tax profit, tax charge and actual tax paid for each country in which they operate, without exception.
?If they only trade in the UK, this has no impact on them. This information would, however, mean that the answers to the questions asked of Barclays Bank earlier this year about where it earned its profits, how much profit was recorded in tax havens, and where it paid its taxes could be answered for all companies trading internationally.?
The Brighton Pavilion MP added: ?This information is vital if we are to ensure that multinational corporations make a fair and proper contribution to our society.
?Companies cannot opt out of corporate social responsibility ? and paying tax to the country that provides them with their opportunities to trade is an essential part of it. You can?t be socially responsible and accountable unless you say where you are and what you do in each place that you trade.?
brightgreenscotland.org/index.php/2011/06/caroline-lucas-bill-fights-taxdodging/
Politics
Caroline Lucas’ bill fights taxdodging - another alternative to harmful public spending cuts
ttosca · 09/06/2011 23:47
Lets see....the annual deficit is £150bn and Ms Lucas has some ideas for finding 'as much as £16bn'....
Nice to have of course - but pardon me for not jumping with excitement.
And a bit 
about the reality of collecting tax from failed companies and multi-nationals.
Hello! Here I am 
"She is also calling for a requirement on multinational companies to publish information on where they make their sales, record their profits and pay their taxes, in order to ensure that corporations make a fair and proper contribution to society."
This is the best part of the bill for me. I would certainly be much happier to shop somewhere that does pay its proper taxes, rather than a store which avoids contributing to the society that supports it.
Having been through companies' annual reports to find how much profit they made and tax paid in this country, I found it was often well hidden.
And of course HRMC should be enabled to do their job properly. Its not much to ask for the banks to provide this information.
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