Apparently HMCR takes their ad' strap line literally! They only want the money of ordinary mortals like me, and are happy to make rules which allow big multi national corporations pay little or no tax on their vast profits.
In the usual complicated & euphemistic jargon used to confound normal people it's called "income shifting" or "tax transfer pricing". If you Google, (one of the worst offenders), the big tax companies like Ernst & Young or Price Waterhouse Coopers you will find they actively market their skills at doing this. It's not illegal - just completely immoral.
It seems to have started with Irish tax law, (how appropriate), & is a way of shuffling profits into & out of subsidiaries so they end up in tax havens where the corporations pay little or no tax.
The average corporate rate of tax is 20%. However in the USA it's 35% & in the UK it's 28%. The big corporations seem to be paying as little as 2.4%. This means the USA loses 1.4trillion $ and the Eurozone loses 868 billion euros.
It isn't just the developed world who are losing out to the corporations. It significantly affects the developing world too. That seems even more reprehensible to me - "Fat Cats" doesn't even begin to cover it.
Having said all of that, the real problem is the complete mess the tax system is in after years of add ons to a system which isn't basically "fit for purpose". What sort of supposedly professional Tax experts do we have? We have a group of overworked, probably underpaid, people, trying their best to make this stupid system work. The really good people probably go to work for E & Y or P W C for much bigger salaries & help the corporations squirm out of their obligations.
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