Accountancy software group Sage and embattled oil giant Shell are among a number of companies accused by an MP of 'depriving the UK Treasury of billions' by paying 'considerably less' than the 30% rate of tax.
Link: A new corporate tax agenda?
The FTSE100 giants are included in an Early Day Motion tabled by Labour MP for Great Grimsby, Austin Mitchell, in which he ‘urges the government to investigate the activities’ of 21 companies.
As Accountancy Age went to press, 34 MPs had signed the petition from across the political spectrum.
Corporate tax rate on the rise
Mitchell has urged the government to demand that each company publishes a ‘full explanation of why it pays tax at less than the standard rate of corporation tax, as well as listing the tax-avoidance schemes used to this end and the sources they acquired the schemes from’.
A spokesman for banking giant Barclays, another on the list, said it usually reports a reconciliation of actual tax rate against standard tax rates and goes into a great deal of ‘granularity’ on the amount of tax paid in its accounts.
The full list of companies named is: Alliance & Leicester; Allied Domecq; Amersham; Barclays; BOC Group; Compass Group; Dixons; GlaxoSmithKline; Hanson, Kelda Group; Lloyds TSB; Northern and Shell, Portland Enterprises; NewsCorp; Prudential, Rolls Royce; Sage Group; Severn Trent; Shell; Virgin Atlantic; Virgin Trains and WPP.
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