Category: Taxing multinational companies

The second worst tax system imaginable

I came across the following quote from Professor Richard Doernberg, author, among other things, of International Taxation in a Nutshell: One might describe the current international tax system as the second worst imaginable – the worst system being whatever would replace the current system. Inertia has its advantages. Discuss.

Corporation tax raises $1.5 trillion a year

All this talk of tax competition, tax planning, tax avoidance, and so on can make one terribly pessimistic. After reading Tim Harford and Michael Devereux both argue that we may as will give up on corporation tax, I got to wondering how much it actually raises. Luckily I had some data to hand, from the… Continue reading Corporation tax raises $1.5 trillion a year

How much tax “ought” Starbucks to have paid?

On Friday evening Ben Saunders posted a really interesting reply to my post arguing the case for name and shame campaigns. If you haven’t already, you should go read it. It’s interesting for two reasons. First, because Ben’s been thinking hard about Starbucks’ tax structure and the practical implementation of its dramatic commitment last week.… Continue reading How much tax “ought” Starbucks to have paid?

Why I don’t agree with UK Uncut’s critics

In this post, I’m going to let you into a little secret about tax avoidance campaigners. But I’ll come back to that in a bit. In a week bookended by the Public Accounts Committee’s criticism of Starbucks, Amazon and Google, and UK Uncut’s planned action in Starbucks stores, the usual criticisms of ‘name and shame’… Continue reading Why I don’t agree with UK Uncut’s critics