I've been reading over the last couple of years about massive global corporations playing the system to avoid paying any tax. Vodafone, for instance, hasn't paid any corporation tax despite making profits of billions. Apple, by dodging between jurisdictions with differing taxation principles, has built up $188 billion in its subsidiaries' offshore bank accounts, untouched. The list goes on and on and on.
Why should they pay tax? Because tax makes their profits possible. Taxes empty their bins. Taxes educate their workforces in schools and universities. Taxes pave the roads on which their products and executives travel. Taxes fund the research which makes innovation profitable. Taxes keep their private jets from hitting other tax avoiders' private jets. Taxes keep the lights on, the water running and the sewage drained. Taxes heal their sick and investigate shoplifting. Taxes pay for the courts they repeatedly run to when they think their copyrights have been infringed. Taxes pay to prosecute the illegal downloaders and taxes protect their patents. Taxes make up the gap between what these companies pay their poorest workers and what they need to live on (the biggest, sickest subsidy of all).
Apple, Google, Tesco, Amazon, Vodafone, the banks and a whole range of organisations need us – but they don't want to pay their share. They are stealing from us, building huge profits not from innovation or efficiency, but from ducking out of the agreement we all make to be part of a civilised society.
It's time to hit back. Cut off the water. Block their sewers. Stop the police from answering the phone when they call. Wipe Vodafone HQ off the ambulance service database. Block off their access roads. Withdraw their executives' passports. Cut off the power. When CEOs fly in, tell Air Traffic Control to close the airspace until a very large sum of money arrives in the state's bank account.
Seal off Canary Wharf and similar enclaves of capitalism, and see what happens without all the things we pay for and they sponge off. Don't let them withdraw from their social duties while continuing to enjoy the privileges of membership of developed societies. If they want to exist in a no-tax, no obligation polity, invite them to move their HQs to Somalia.
And then we start sending in bills. Work out how much each employee cost to educate and add it to local and property taxes that they can't avoid through transfer pricing and Double Irish manoeuvres. Bill them in A+E. Coin-operated courts, police cars and ambulances – or simply refuse to come out. Let the bins pile up outside Vodafone's offices unless they pay cash. If they decide to move their businesses offshore, we tax the imports until we think they've paid back what they owe. Most of them claim to be doing their business elsewhere anyway, like Google's London sales team which 'books' the actual sales in Ireland.
The principle comes from a passage in Lewis Jones's 1937 novel Cwmardy, in which one sell-out miner refuses to join the union. He loads up his truck, down in the blackness, and it starts to slip down the incline. Desperate, he begs them to help before it rolls down over him. Grimly, they refuse: he's refused to share their load and in return they teach him a lesson in collective struggle. Eventually, they relent when he promises to join the union, suitably chastened.
What they did to one class traitor, we can do to any number of free-loading, thieving corporations. Vodafone has started 'rounding up' pay-as-you-go bills to squeeze even more money out of their customers. Fine: let's do the same to them. Pay As You Go services until they give in and cough up.
(This is, of course, pure fantasy. While the government talks big about corporate tax, the truth is that they're actually making it easier to avoid tax. They're cutting corporate tax rates to 20% and George Osborne has made it easier for companies to hide their money offshore. Of course he has: they're his friends. He'd rather they paid a few millions to his party than many millions to the state).
Showing posts with label vodafone. Show all posts
Showing posts with label vodafone. Show all posts
Friday, 26 July 2013
Tuesday, 23 April 2013
Vodafone: they literally don't get the message.
Receiving an unwanted promotional text from Vodafone today, I thought I'd respond with an equally unwelcome message:
'Not delivered': that'd be right.
Vodafone, in case you missed it, is one of the world's most egregious tax avoiders. Any trick they can think off, they pull. In the end, a private deal with the head of HMRC (of very dubious legality, let alone morality) let them off a £6 billion bill.
We're also used to the idea (other than in the banking sector) that CEOs of global companies are very clever men (they are all men). Perhaps this is erroneous. I watched an interview on Channel 4 News yesterday in which Eric Schmidt said two interesting things.
He said that Google wouldn't be paying any more taxes than required (carefully not mentioning that his entire global corporate structure is set up to move profits to no-tax centres through chicanery) because Google does lots of 'philanthropic work' (tossing a few crumbs rather than being a responsible corporate citizen) and that the UK government had to get the economy going through a much greater financial stimulus (5.33 onwards).
Where does Eric think governments get their money from? He's a very clever man. Surely he knows that money comes from taxes. So basically he's saying that those of us who can't hide our money offshore should bail out those – like him – who can.
There's a word for people like Eric, but this is a family blog. But here's a thought: if Google paid local full corporate taxes in the countries where profits are made, perhaps our libraries wouldn't be closing, our hospitals sold off and our infrastructure failing. Increasing your profit margins by deceiving the taxman isn't innovation or any of the things business textbooks talk about. It's just parasitism.
'Not delivered': that'd be right.
Vodafone, in case you missed it, is one of the world's most egregious tax avoiders. Any trick they can think off, they pull. In the end, a private deal with the head of HMRC (of very dubious legality, let alone morality) let them off a £6 billion bill.
We're also used to the idea (other than in the banking sector) that CEOs of global companies are very clever men (they are all men). Perhaps this is erroneous. I watched an interview on Channel 4 News yesterday in which Eric Schmidt said two interesting things.
He said that Google wouldn't be paying any more taxes than required (carefully not mentioning that his entire global corporate structure is set up to move profits to no-tax centres through chicanery) because Google does lots of 'philanthropic work' (tossing a few crumbs rather than being a responsible corporate citizen) and that the UK government had to get the economy going through a much greater financial stimulus (5.33 onwards).
Where does Eric think governments get their money from? He's a very clever man. Surely he knows that money comes from taxes. So basically he's saying that those of us who can't hide our money offshore should bail out those – like him – who can.
There's a word for people like Eric, but this is a family blog. But here's a thought: if Google paid local full corporate taxes in the countries where profits are made, perhaps our libraries wouldn't be closing, our hospitals sold off and our infrastructure failing. Increasing your profit margins by deceiving the taxman isn't innovation or any of the things business textbooks talk about. It's just parasitism.
Tuesday, 25 September 2012
Ambush of the week
Dave Hartnett was until a few days ago the head of HRMC, the government's tax collectors. Creatively - thinking outside the box, one might say - he saw it as his job not to collect tax, but to allow major corporations such as Vodafone and Goldman Sachs to avoid paying tax. Illegally, as Private Eye's long-running investigation shows.
Dave's corporate mates wanted to thank him for his long years of service, with a slap-up feed at an Oxford college (they're for hire): bow ties, candles, champers. Cue UK Uncut with a lovely ambush and some delightful replies from the assorted tycoons ('we'll set the dogs on you', 'scum').
Enjoy.
Dave's corporate mates wanted to thank him for his long years of service, with a slap-up feed at an Oxford college (they're for hire): bow ties, candles, champers. Cue UK Uncut with a lovely ambush and some delightful replies from the assorted tycoons ('we'll set the dogs on you', 'scum').
Enjoy.
Monday, 18 June 2012
Operator? There's a problem with my line.
Vodafone: they're not listening
An educated workforce
A legal system for enforcing bill payment
A telecommunications infrastructure
A distribution network to ensure that when you decide your phone is a month too old, you can get a new one on the spot
A healthcare system to keep employees and customers alive and texting. It even asks no questions when Vodafone users 'fall' on their phones while doing naked DIY and find the said phone lodged somewhere intimate.
A benefits system which subsidises Vodafone employees' low pay.
The advanced technology training required to design and build a satellite and computer-based technology which enables you to view grainy pornography from anywhere in the country (except my flat in a populous central city).
A Foreign Office and Business Office which makes damn sure those pesky Congolese don't start asking for salaries and masks while mining the precious metals required.
Amount Vodafone made in profit from UK operations this year:
£1.3,000,000,000
Amount Vodafone pays in corporation tax to fund all these things:
£0.0
CEO's salary:
£14,000,000
Cuts to public services this year:
Disabled children's support
SureStart
School Building
NHS infrastructure and staffing
Policing
Armed services
Environmental protection
Tax collectors
Youth services
Employment service
Higher Education
and many more
Thanks to Vodafone and their friends, we will become poorer, sicker and thicker. Then they'll complain that their sales are down and the UK is an unstable market. At no point will they wonder whether they've contributed to this state of affairs at all.
Obviously it's not just Vodafone amongst telecom firms, or business in general: Tesco are the biggest thieves. But as I have a Vodafone contract, they make me angriest.
Monday, 23 April 2012
Non-taxable takeaways
According to this week's Private Eye and the FT, George Osborne personally lobbied the Indian Government to let Vodafone off paying a £2billion tax bill it dodged by channelling a takeover through an offshore tax haven… just like they've done here (your bill doesn't mention it, but Vodafone's actually a Liechtenstein shell company).
Osborne's claim is that if Vodafone has to pay its taxes, it and other companies won't invest in India. So? If Vodafone won't pay its taxes, it's not contributing, and can sod off. More to the point, if they can't make money and pay taxes, they're essentially saying that their profits are nothing more than subsidies from the Indian taxpayer (like British railway operators).
So the British chancellor is helping an offshore company avoid paying tax in a poor country to which we give £1 billion - aid to which his rightwing MPs and the Daily Mail object. Even worse, while Osborne tells the Indians they shouldn't close down abusive tax evasion, he's just done the same thing to Barclays. It can't be one rule for the rich countries and one for the poor… can it?
How about this? If we start telling Vodafone to pay its taxes, rather than helping them rip off poor countries, we won't have to give them any aid. Everyone's a winner. Meanwhile, how about asking our MPs to inquire why a UK Chancellor is spending his time helping an essentially foreign company rip off a foreign company?
Too radical?
Osborne's claim is that if Vodafone has to pay its taxes, it and other companies won't invest in India. So? If Vodafone won't pay its taxes, it's not contributing, and can sod off. More to the point, if they can't make money and pay taxes, they're essentially saying that their profits are nothing more than subsidies from the Indian taxpayer (like British railway operators).
So the British chancellor is helping an offshore company avoid paying tax in a poor country to which we give £1 billion - aid to which his rightwing MPs and the Daily Mail object. Even worse, while Osborne tells the Indians they shouldn't close down abusive tax evasion, he's just done the same thing to Barclays. It can't be one rule for the rich countries and one for the poor… can it?
How about this? If we start telling Vodafone to pay its taxes, rather than helping them rip off poor countries, we won't have to give them any aid. Everyone's a winner. Meanwhile, how about asking our MPs to inquire why a UK Chancellor is spending his time helping an essentially foreign company rip off a foreign company?
Too radical?
Wednesday, 21 December 2011
Towards the Promised Land
A parliamentary report confirms what Private Eye, the Guardian and UK Uncut supporters have long known to be true: that voluntary taxpaying isn't confined to Greece and Italy. Over here, the more you owe, the less you pay.
What's really shocking about the latest report is the simplicity of this particular scam. In Shaxson's Treasure Islands, the vast panoply of tax-evasion scams is laid bare: companies acquiring 'debts' to other companies in the same group but based offshore so that all the profits magically become losses, or every banana in the world being virtually shipped to one tiny tax-free island, and myriad other schemes.
But that's too complicated. Vodafone and Goldman Sachs found a much better system.
1. Refuse to pay your tax.
2. Make it very clear that you have more and better lawyers than the government.
3. Wine and dine officers of the Revenue and Customs service ('Don't cheat: eat'). They will soon be your friends. And eventually your employees.
4. Accept the head of HMRC's illegal offer of a tiny settlement with a handshake. (Vodafone owed £6bn and paid £1.25 bn). Don't worry about oversight: Dave Hartnett both shakes hands and is the authorising officer, very conveniently. And when that pesky parliament pokes its nose in, HMRC will insist on 'commercial confidentiality'.
Why break the law when you can own the government, whichever party's nominally in charge?
What's really shocking about the latest report is the simplicity of this particular scam. In Shaxson's Treasure Islands, the vast panoply of tax-evasion scams is laid bare: companies acquiring 'debts' to other companies in the same group but based offshore so that all the profits magically become losses, or every banana in the world being virtually shipped to one tiny tax-free island, and myriad other schemes.
But that's too complicated. Vodafone and Goldman Sachs found a much better system.
1. Refuse to pay your tax.
2. Make it very clear that you have more and better lawyers than the government.
3. Wine and dine officers of the Revenue and Customs service ('Don't cheat: eat'). They will soon be your friends. And eventually your employees.
4. Accept the head of HMRC's illegal offer of a tiny settlement with a handshake. (Vodafone owed £6bn and paid £1.25 bn). Don't worry about oversight: Dave Hartnett both shakes hands and is the authorising officer, very conveniently. And when that pesky parliament pokes its nose in, HMRC will insist on 'commercial confidentiality'.
Why break the law when you can own the government, whichever party's nominally in charge?
Friday, 3 June 2011
Your friend the corporation
It's a truism that corporations resent the warm fuzzy emotions people get from doing things you can't commodify: love, in particular. That's why so many ads try to insert their products into scenes of joy: family life, relationships and so on. It's called simulation, whereas the relationships they can't actually appropriate are known as symbolic exchanges, in Baudrillard's terms.
Some companies actively take the piss though. Chief amongst them is Vodafone. Fresh from its triumph in tapping every Greek mobile phone call on behalf of the American Embassy, they've released a short film and campaign called Our Power, in which they attempt to claim a central role in the Egyptian revolution.
By a funny coincidence, a mobile phone provider called Vodafone followed the dictatorship's orders and closed down their network to prevent the revolution spreading.
I wonder if they're related.
This is of course an extreme example of how capitalism works, and it's no surprise to see Vodafone back-pedalling like mad, but it's a mode of behaviour that's become normal. Every gig you attend 'sponsored' by a hair gel firm or a lager maker is a trap. They've bought a captive audience, and it's you.
Some companies actively take the piss though. Chief amongst them is Vodafone. Fresh from its triumph in tapping every Greek mobile phone call on behalf of the American Embassy, they've released a short film and campaign called Our Power, in which they attempt to claim a central role in the Egyptian revolution.
The video goes on to show images from protest rallies in Cairo's Tahrir Square before claiming: "We didn't send people to the streets, we didn't start the revolution … We only reminded Egyptians how powerful they are."
The short film features screengrabs of Facebook and Twitter messages posted by Egyptians approving of the Vodafone ad campaign, then an audio recording of Hosni Mubarak's resignation as president being announced on TV.
To make matters worse for Vodafone and JWT, both the original ad campaign and the latest video feature Adel Emam, a veteran Egyptian actor who initially denounced the pro-change protests in January and has been widely derided in Egypt for his close links with the Mubarak family.
Vodafone is one of several firms in Egypt that agreed to shut off its mobile and internet networks in the early stages of the revolt as the government attempted to isolate anti-Mubarak protesters. It also allowed the Mubarak regime to send out anti-revolutionary text messages en masse to subscribers.
The firm is facing a series of legal challenges over what some critics have called its "complicity in dictatorship". It is accused of passing on information about opposition activists to the Mubarak regime's security services – a claim seemingly confirmed by Vodafone's global head of content standards, Annie Mullins, in February 2009 but later denied by Vodafone Egypt.
By a funny coincidence, a mobile phone provider called Vodafone followed the dictatorship's orders and closed down their network to prevent the revolution spreading.
I wonder if they're related.
This is of course an extreme example of how capitalism works, and it's no surprise to see Vodafone back-pedalling like mad, but it's a mode of behaviour that's become normal. Every gig you attend 'sponsored' by a hair gel firm or a lager maker is a trap. They've bought a captive audience, and it's you.
Monday, 13 December 2010
I almost feel sorry for Vodafone
Corporations like to seem cool and up to date. So they do things like have Twitter accounts. Vodafone decided to run a little competition this weekend: send in things that 'mademesmile' and win a camera. Every tweet was displayed in real time on their website front page.
Oh dear. All those nasty critics and cynics somehow found out about it, and Vodafone's website was filled with short comments about tax evasion.
That'll teach them to fake it.
Oh dear. All those nasty critics and cynics somehow found out about it, and Vodafone's website was filled with short comments about tax evasion.
Within an hour #mademesmile was trending, and zipped to the top of Twitter’s trending topic list. Instead of the collection of warm, fuzzy feelings Vodafone had been hoping to have associated with their brand, visitors to the stream were treated to a barrage of tweets lambasting the company for dodging taxes. First we occupied their stores, then we occupied their hashtag.
That'll teach them to fake it.
Thursday, 25 November 2010
I think I'm beginning to understand where we're going wrong
Who said this?
Dame Lesley Strathie. No reason why you should recognise that name. Let me explain.
Dame Leslie is the Chief Executive of Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs. She is the chief collector of taxes for the United Kingdom. This was her defence when questioned why HMRC let Vodafone off a £6.2 billion bill and agreed that any more money they hide in Luxembourg will be tax-free too.
“I’m sorry, I’m not a tax specialist.”
Dame Lesley Strathie. No reason why you should recognise that name. Let me explain.
Dame Leslie is the Chief Executive of Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs. She is the chief collector of taxes for the United Kingdom. This was her defence when questioned why HMRC let Vodafone off a £6.2 billion bill and agreed that any more money they hide in Luxembourg will be tax-free too.
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