My £50m tax bill shames those global brands that waddle off
ISAT with a national newspaper and a summary of my personal affairs last week and realised something. It turns out that I have probably paid more in tax personally to the exchequer in the past two years than the UK operations of some global internet and retail brands combined have paid in corporation tax for the past five years.
As a British citizen, it is my duty to pay my taxes.
No one is ‘happy’ paying tax, but it is fundamental to the social contract of living in a civilised society where the state provides education, defence, welfare and healthcare to its citizens.
What I don’t understand – and few politicians help me – is how some of the massive global companies visible in every part of British society can pay less as corporate entities than I do as an individual.
In a 30-year career I have started seven i nsurance companies from scratch, employing perhaps 50,000 people in the process.
Combined, these have generated trading profits amounting to billions of pounds, with the associated corporation tax payments, while their employees have paid their own income tax and contributed financially to society in many ways.
Yes my success has given me great rewards, and so I have paid my personal taxes, as the vast majority of British workers do too. Only in my case it is to the tune of more than £50m in the past 24 months alone.
Yet looking at the papers on my desk, I feel compelled to ask politicians of all colours why taxation policies over successive governments have often made me wonder why I stay here in the UK while global brands – which apparently contribute so little in tax – find staying an understandably attractive option?
No wonder I feel that the policies that nurture these contrasting sentiments must be the wrong way round.
Companies that play by the book will always say that strictly they are doing nothing wrong.
I grant that they create jobs and stimulate other economic activity – but tax- wise, if they waddle, swim and quack l i ke ducks, should the taxman not treat them like ducks? If all individuals and businesses – small and large – pay their fair share, the tax burden for everyone could reduce.
It takes thousands of men and women on the Clapham Omnibus paying their basic r ate on r el atively l ow incomes to match the huge sums redirected out of our tax system by those whose money finds its way into Swiss bank accounts and avoidance schemes.
The former Danish Prime Minister Margrethe Vestager – now Europe’s anti-trust chief – has recently been making noises about a level playing field for tax and the need f or deterrents f or multi-nationals which use tax loopholes.
We will wait to see if these noises become policies, but I’m not holding my breath.
In Britain, it is for our own politicians to set clear examples in the fiscal policies they push f or and enforce. The ideal balance is fair tax, fairly and consistently applied.
I would also like to see an end to the insidiously populist ‘anti success’ rhetoric that has become common.
Success isn’t the enemy. We need to sharpen, not blunt, the hunger in aspiring business leaders.
THE incentive to build businesses from scratch, as I have done all my life, always has a degree of self-interest at heart. However, the rewards for entrepreneurial success used to be aligned with the value delivered to society and the exchequer.
With enterprise creation on a large scale come equally large personal, employment and corporate tax contributions. Providing, of course, that those taxes are actually collected.
Looking forward to May 7, if those who pick up the keys to 10 and 11 Downing Street want to keep entrepreneurs flourishing here in Britain – while simultaneously helping the public to keep faith that the system for individuals and business is fair through and through – they too need to get their ducks in a row.