When we hear, as we did during the boring election campaign, what do you wish to cut, if not hopsitals, then schools or libraries, or welfare payments, it simply is not true, not if everyone paid their fair share of tax.
It is time we got tough with the tax dodgers.
£4.1bn: the true cost of corporate tax avoidance
Starbucks, Google and Amazon: they’re all at it. These super rich big businesses were recently dragged up in front of MPs and exposed for using tax havens and other scams to pay little or no corporation tax.
There’s big talk from our politicians but not much action. Google even recently admitted “We could pay more tax but we would have to do so voluntarily”.
But together we have the numbers, track record and imagination to tackle tax dodging and win. And it’s the perfect time to work together to take it on. It’s all over the news and lots of people seem to want real change. These are the best ingredients for a great 38 Degrees campaign.
We’ve got the right moment – but we need the right next move to force a change. 38 Degrees members have voted time and time again to prioritise tackling tax-dodging. Can you fill out a few questions to decide together what we do next to tackle tax dodging?
Businesses based in the UK aren’t playing on a level playing field. From our local bookshops, right up to big names like John Lewis they’re being undercut and put out of business by tax dodgers. Something needs to change.
Alongside this, scores of high profile business people and celebrities have been dodging tax on their incomes. Our public services are being cut and we’re being asked to tighten our belts whilst others are being let off scot free.
We’ve shown before that when we act together we can push corporations and politicians to do the right thing. We’ve taken on companies like McDonalds and embarrassed them into not dodging tax around the Olympics.
If we focus our people powered movement on the right next move – we could force the change we need to see. It takes a couple of minutes to fill out the survey.
And please do not forget to join the occupation of Starbucks on 8 December 2012. If there is no action organised near you then organise one.
Starbucks sucks!
Starbucks is not a place to go for decent coffee, nor is it a good place to work. Starbucks now stand accused of dodging tax, yet another reason not to patronise Starbucks.
Starbucks has paid just £8.6 million in taxes on a reported £3 billion in UK sales since 1998, when it launched its first UK coffee shop, despite having opened 735 outlets, according to a four-month investigation by Reuters.
In the past three years, Starbucks has paid no tax on its UK earnings after recording annual losses in company accounts, despite US executives of the Seattle company claiming in telephone calls with investors, transcripts of which have been seen by Reuters, that the UK business was profitable.
If nothing else, this is unfair competition to indie coffee shops who do pay their taxes.
Tax consultant Richard Murphy:
When we have a tax system that lets very large companies like Starbucks be on our High Street and pay no tax and are competing with small locally owned businesses who are paying tax on all their profits, then there’s something very clearly wrong with our tax system.
In 2007, the chief operating officer, Martin Coles, told analysts in a fourth quarter results presentation that the UK unit’s profits were funding Starbucks’ expansion in overseas markets. The chief finance officer at the time, Peter Bocian, added that the UK division enjoyed operating profit margins of almost 15% that year, equivalent to nearly £50m in profit.
Accounts filed with Companies House, which must be a truthful reflection of the business, according to HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC), showed a 10th consecutive annual loss.
A year later, after filing a £26m loss in the UK, Starbucks’ chief executive, Howard Schultz, told investors the business here was so successful he planned to apply the lessons to the company’s biggest market, the US.
Starbucks generated £398m in UK sales last year but paid no corporation tax.
UK Uncut now has Starbucks in their sights.
Starbucks would appear to be exploiting all ends of the coffee businesses: failure to pay farmers a fair price, charge extortionate price for rubbish coffee, poor working conditions for low pay, failure to pay fair share of tax
I would boycott Starbucks, except like Costa, it is not somewhere I would be seen dead. On the other hand I would be more than happy to join UK Uncut in occupying their coffee shops to highlight their tax dodging activities.
I would suggest all indie coffee shops, as well as participating in the Costa (dis)Loyalty Card scheme, stick up a poster along the lines: Unlike Starbucks we pay our fair share of tax!
Top Story in The wk4coffee Daily (Wednesday 17 October 2012).
Top Story in The wk4coffee Daily (Thursday 18 October 2012).
Top Story in Mo’s Coffee News (Thursday 18 October 2012).
UK Uncut legal action in court
Only philistines would close libraries. Only the meanest would cut benefits to the most vulnerable in society.
The ConDem government is doing both.
On idealogical grounds the ConDem government is engaging in slash and burn of public services in the name of austerity.
What sort of sick bastard works in a Job Centre and takes a sick pleasure in cutting benefits to the most vulnerable in society, forcing people to work as unpaid slave labour?
The cuts are not even necessary were HMRC to do their job properly and collect unpaid tax from tax avoiders.
UK Uncut Legal Action have been given leave to challenge HMRC letting off Goldman Sachs a £20 million tax bill.
We only know the details of this case due to a brave whistle-blower. A whistle-blower HMRC victimised.
If a small business does not pay their tax, they are chased by HMRC, if necessary made bankrupt to recover the tax.
Why is Dave Hartnett, the most wined and dined public servant, not under criminal investigation for Misconduct in Public Office and money laundering?
You can follow this case on twitter by following @ukuncut and @ukuncutlegal.
Please donate to UK Uncut Legal Action.
Sometime last summer, my dentist smashed up a tooth. You will have to go to hospital she said. What now, I asked? No, they will contact you. What, they will call me? No, they will write to you.
Months later, having spoken to my dentist several times about the long delay, I get a letter from the hospital. Great, I think, I will be going in next week. No, an appointment for some weeks hence.
On the appointed day, I turn up at my local hospital. I check the paperwork to double check where I have to be, and shock horror, wrong hospital, I have not been referred to my local hospital but one some distance away, with no easy way of getting there by public transport.
I check with my dental practice, to learn that they, not just they but all GP and dental practices, have received instruction that patients are to be referred to hospitals in Hampshire, anywhere but the local hospital, which happens to be just across the county border in Surrey.
– Frimley Park no longer local hospital for Farnborough and Aldershot
– Farnborough patients denied patient choice
But we have patient choice, it is we the patient who decide where we are going. In theory yes, in practice no, budget considerations decide.
I broke a tooth, another trip to my dentist.
It will have to be taken out, and no, in light of what happened before, I will be referred to hospital. No way, I say, am I going miles away, I am to go to my local hospital. My dentist agrees, and says she will see what she can do. She then explains what is going wrong.
Up until April 2011, she would refer me to a consultant to do the necessary work. Now she has to refer me to a committee, it is the committee who decide where I will go, a committee that is not made up of dentists.
Many things wrong with this:
Early December I receive a letter inviting me to call the Royal County Hospital in Guildford. Not my local hospital, but better than Basingstoke.
I call, make an appointment. I ask why Guildford? They do not know. I could be referred to my local hospital, but then I would be at the end of the queue. I decide to try Guildford, be seen, then maybe get referred to my local Hospital Frimley Park.
Friday 13, I turn up at the Royal County. Bad design, obliged to walk the length of the hospital to find the entrance. Why is it not at the front of the building? I walk in and I am nearly knocked out by the oppressive heat. I find the relevant department. Instructions on reception tell me to sign in on a touch screen, instructions on touch screen tell me to to report to reception! Someone is making money out of a contract for unnecessary equipment. I report to reception and hand in registration form. Receptionist ask me have I used the touch screen to register. I say yes. She takes my registration form, crumples it up, and throws in the bin.
Consultant is pleasant and helpful. She looks at my recently broken tooth. I ask about the tooth the dentist smashed last summer. She says she knows nothing about it, asks me which tooth. Looks in the file and tells me there is no paperwork. I explain that I have been waiting since the summer and passed around the houses. She asks is it painful? I say no, but occasionally a dull ache. I say I am not waiting any longer, can she not deal with that one too? She agrees and sends me off for an x-ray.
My head is clamped in a machine, an x-ray machine rotates around my head. I am called back in to see the consultant. An impressive x-ray picture, a couple of inches high and several inches long. Four teeth to be extracted. I turn white. I only know of two. She then shows me a back tooth, wobbles it to make the point it is loose, and tells me it has infection all around. It does not have to come out, but will eventually have to come out. If nothing else, explanation for occasional dull pain. Surprisingly, the one the dentist has smashed up could be rebuilt. Another could be rebuilt, lot of work, a post and a crown. I say I do not mind, better than losing a tooth. The one the dentist said had to come out, yes, will have to come out.
Will it be done now? No, the hospital will contact me to make an appointment. Will she do it? Maybe, but will see on the day. Why not my local hospital? They only do under general anaesthetic and this can be done using local. She will write to my dentist and explain the teeth that can be rebuilt.
It can only get worse.
With the massive privatisation of the NHS the ConDem government is trying to force through against the strong opposition of the public and those who work in the NHS, it can only get worse.
Bristol Cathedral - Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us
The key issue is a theological one … what do we stand for as a Cathedral. Economic justice is the Number One issue in the Bible. — Giles Fraser, former Canon Chancellor St Paul’s Cathedral
One reason many do not like the church in particular and Christianity in general is the appalling cant and hypocrisy. Do as we preach, not as we do.
A religion of the poor and oppressed hijacked by Emperor Constantine to become the official state religion of a military empire. Overnight the oppressed became the oppressors. Religion turned into what it had always been, a tool to control the masses, not a means of liberation and salvation for the masses.
St Paul’s learned the hard way when Occupy London Stock Exchange turned up on their doorstep and St Paul’s decided to close for a week on bogus health and safety grounds. Having learnt the lesson the hard way, the clergy of St Paul’s are now working closely with the camp, having been forced to re-examine the core values of Christianity.
Lessons that have yet to be learnt by the administration at either Bristol Cathedral or Sheffield Cathedral. Both located amidst pockets of acute deprivation.
The Deans of both Cathedrals say they want their grounds back, that it is public space, are threatening eviction.
Are those in occupation not the public? Are they not engaging in wide discourse with the wider public? Have they not shown willingness to engage with the clergy of both cathedrals?
If there is a problem, then why are the clergy not talking to resolve it?
Why is Bristol Cathedral working in lockstep with the local council to mount an eviction? Since when has a local council represented local people, let alone acted for local people?
Sheffield Cathedral, a place for all people, unless you happen to be living in a tent as a protester, then pick up your tent and depart.
It is even claimed the camps are not making a difference. Jeremy Paxman made a similar crass comment on Newsnight two nights ago in his dumb preamble prior to an excellent interview with Giles Fraser, former Canon Chancellor at St Paul’s, when he said nothing has been achieved as it has not changed capitalism.
Nothing has changed?
Would Giles Fraser have been on Newsnight two nights ago? Would David Cameron yesterday have been saying action has to be taken against corporate tax dodgers? Would the issues raised by UK Uncut have been on Newsnight last night?
The entire political landscape has changed. The only reasons these issues of social justice and tax avoidance are being raised at all is thanks to St Paul’s in-the-Camp and the numerous camps across the country including Occupy Bristol and Occupy Sheffield and UK Uncut targeting tax dodgers like Sir Philip Green and Vodafone.
As Giles Fraser said two nights ago on Newsnight, minor issues of inconvenience in the greater realm of things are far less important than the issues being raised, issues which go to the core of Christianity and why churches like St Paul’s and our great cathedrals were built.
Giles Fraser was preceded by an odious woman from the Church of England General Synod, lacking in grace and lacking any understanding of the message of Jesus. People like her give all Christians a bad name.
– College Green update
– Sheffield Cathedral Media Release: Occupy Sheffield 5 January 2012
– Occupy the New year!
– The Occupation Continues
Keithpp's Blog 