Report: Britain Complains About EU Blacklist

January 31, 2016

“Britain has complained to the European commission about an EU blacklist designed to hit tax havens, including Bermuda, describing it as ‘misleading and deeply unhelpful,” according to a report from the UK’s Observer newspaper.

The report said, “Britain has been privately lobbying the EU to remove the tax haven through which Google funnels billions of pounds of profits from an official blacklist, the Observer can reveal.”

The front page of the newspaper’s Sunday edition showing the Bermuda-related story

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“Treasury ministers have told the European commission that they are ‘strongly opposed’ to proposed sanctions against Bermuda, a favoured shelter for Google’s profits and one of 30 tax jurisdictions in Brussels’s sights.

“The disclosure is made in a memorandum circulated among Tory MEPs in Brussels that describes potential ‘countermeasures’ against blacklisted tax havens as ‘unhelpful’.

“Google is expected to announce on Monday that it has amassed £30bn of profits from non-US sales in Bermuda, where companies are not liable to pay corporation tax.”

The newspaper quotes Liberal Democrat MEP Catherine Bearder as saying, “It is shameful that the government talks tough on tax avoidance at home, while secretly opposing the measures needed to tackle it abroad. This hypocrisy has got to end. Britain must start being part of the solution to tax avoidance, not part of the problem.”

It also cites a statement from a Treasury spokesperson: “It is simply wrong to suggest the UK is anything other than at the international forefront of tackling aggressive ‎tax planning, avoidance and evasion.

“The government has led the way in the G20 to strengthen international rules that counter aggressive tax planning by multinational companies, and supported global tax transparency through the automatic exchange of information, which will help HMRC to crack down on tax evasion.

“All of the UK’s Crown Dependencies and Overseas Territories are early adopters of this new global standard. This is all in addition to introducing the world-leading diverted profits tax which stops companies ‎moving profits to tax havens.”

Click here to read the full report on the Guardian’s website.

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Comments (5)

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  1. IslandTeacher says:

    Google the following : Guardian Cayman islands

    This will help you understand more about the Guardian.

  2. Coffee says:

    And Bob Richards is to scared to ask for more money from Google ! I say that , “if we are going to take licks for nothing , we might as well get paid in proportion to the floggings !