We must nail the myth that we are all avoiders now

ANOTHER day, another set of impenetrable figures. This time it’s Mondelez UK and connected company Cadbury UK, which has just reported a seventh year of zero corporation tax payments.

These tax avoidance stories create an impression that everyone is “at it”. A myth has been spun telling us that if we buy duty-free, invest in an ISA or top up our pension we are tax avoiders – so should back off criticising the likes of Amazon and Facebook.

Wrong. No tax is being avoided as no tax is due. Those who say we should feel guilty are likely seeking to de-stigmatise the immorality of tax avoidance.

In recent years, HMRC has begun to clamp down on avoidance – which it describes as “bending the rules to gain an advantage Parliament never intended” – and evasion, which is illegal. It is estimated the cost to

the UK is £7billion a year – 180,000 nurses. Campaigners want multinationals to be forced by governments to produce country-by-country reports of income, profit and taxes. Thankfully a growing movement of firms here – Lush, Timpson, SSE, and the Co-op included – are backing the Fair Tax Mark.

In 2016 a group of MPs forced an amendment to a bill requiring large corporations to report country-bycountry. It’s time to enact those powers and for the UK to take the lead on tax transparency.