Charity preaches to the converted on tax-dodger tour

“I SUPPORT the tax-dodging bill” badges are handed to the group of 20, gathering at the Eros statue in London’s Piccadilly Circus.

This is a walking tour with a twist. The two guides sporting bowler hats will avoid the traditional tourist traps. Instead, we will be touring the banks, shops and tax advisers of Mayfair.

For this is a tax tour, organised by ActionAid, the international development charity. Making stops at various company branches and offices, it hopes to make the complicated subject of tax avoidance intelligible to the assorted group.

More than that, ActionAid wants people to lobby whichever British government is elected in May to introduce a bill to crack down on tax avoidance by businesses operating in the UK.

This is not a hard sell. The walkers are enraged by tax avoidance.

On the topic of HSBC, now embroiled in a scandal over its role in alleged tax-dodging, Mimi Sharma, a professor on study leave from the University of Hawaii, is furious. “All these horrible bankers and heads of companies who have milked the people . . . walk away with millions as their bonus and pay.”

The tour is not attempting to change people’s minds, says guide Natasha Adams, the activism officer of ActionAid. “It’s trying to get people to get their heads around how this stuff actually works.

“People switch off when they hear economics being discussed.” Tax lectures can be dull, she points out.

Lucy McDonnell works for a charity based in Mayfair, and came to find out who the local tax dodgers are. “I’ve read so many articles on tax. [This makes it] a bit more real life.”

On this trip, a coffee break turns out not to be a chance for a cappuccino but to stand outside Starbucks and talk about tax avoidance.

Adams reads out a quote from the British parliament’s public accounts committee, which has recently been grilling HSBC. The committee said US coffee chain Starbucks was “either running the business very badly or there is some fiddle going on”.

Profit-shifting schemes are plained by bags of chocolate coins.

At the end, the tour leaders redistribute the wealth. We each get a coin. Fairtrade chocolate, of course; milk free for the vegans. — © The Financial Times, London

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