Extract from Budget
debate
(Dover)
(Ind):...I also welcome the fact that we are taking
firmer action against large businesses that are too often
involved in industrial tax avoidance, which is unacceptable. I
particularly welcome the work on joint and several liability for
online platforms such as Amazon, eBay and Alibaba. Those platforms have
enabled overseas retailers to game our VAT system and get an
unfair competitive advantage over smaller businesses in this
country, thereby putting them out of business, by not paying
their fair share of taxes. A cross-party campaign, which has
included members of the Public Accounts Committee, has fought on
the issue for a very long time, and I hugely welcome the measures
that were announced today to introduce justice, fairness and a
level playing field to our tax system. The Chancellor is to be
commended for doing the right thing and making sure that we get
revenue so that we have extra cash for our schools and hospitals.
We need to go further with these multinationals. The problem is
that too many of them think that they are not subject to this
country’s rule of law. They behave as though they are over-mighty
medieval barons to whom the laws do not apply. This House should
call time on that view. We need to make sure that Amazon, Facebook, Google and so on pay a fair
share of taxes in this country. They should be subject to our
rule of law. Social media outfits should also be subject to our
libel and counter-terrorism laws, as well as laws that protect
people and how they are treated. We need to take stronger and
firmer measures. They will say, “We are in America. You can’t
touch us, ” but to that I say, “We are leaving the European
Union. We are taking back control of trade policy, and we can
take back control of internet access.” We need to start thinking
along those lines...
Extract from
Westminster Hall debate on Public Country-by-country
Reporting
(Edinburgh North and Leith)
(SNP):...It is also appropriate to note the
action—small, but welcome—announced by the Chancellor today about
assessing the activities of firms trading here. It is not enough,
but it is a start. Profit-shifters—the shape-shifters of the
corporate world—seem only too glad to accept the benefits that
come from operating in our communities, such as policing, road
maintenance, street lighting, and so on, but seem far more
reluctant to pay their share of the costs. I appreciate that
there are people—some of whom are, or have been, legislators in
this Parliament—who also stash cash offshore or use interesting,
tortuous schemes to avoid paying tax. Successive Governments have
not done enough to stop them. However, corporations that
routinely play the three-card trick with their profits are truly
appalling. As the right hon. Member for Barking mentioned, the
excuses that are routinely offered by Apple, Starbucks,
Google, Amazon, and the rest—that they abide by
the letter of the law and pay what is demanded of them—stink.
Legal or not, the behaviours that they exhibit are immoral; they
should be willing to pay for the services they receive...
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