I know that this is a TV programme (BBC2 last night), but I thought it was woirth puytting on this board.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b06ygl19/the-town-that-took-on-the-taxman
Did anyone watch it? I'll try to watch it on iPlayer later.
Yes I watched most of it and it was rather interesting.
Not least for the dynamics between the local business owners in relation to the plan.
Effectively the whole idea was to prove that if the big boys can do it, then so can consortiums of small businesses - not so that those small businesses can get away with paying much less tax but to force government to make a change to the rules, on the basis of opening pandora's box - effectively that HMRC risk thousands of small businesses coming together to minimise their tax in a manner that would adversely affect overall tax take.
And if this change to the tax regime was done - i.e. to close obvious loopholes which allows big multinationals effectively to pay any amount of tax they chose, then there would be much greater fairness on the high street. The most glaring examples of unfairness being perhaps the coffee shop - a local one off small business paying 20% corporation tax on profits, while Starbucks or one of the other big chains effectively export their profit to a tax haven and pay a fraction of the tax.
