Tax Justice Network

In this episode, Taxcast host and producer Naomi Fowler explores tax as a tool for racial justice and the launch of a new report by Decolonising Economics.

"There's a real opportunity for mobilising towards transformative policies that'll work not just for racialised communities in the UK but for everyone feeling the pains of this economic system"

~ Guppi Bola, Decolonising Economics, author of the report “Tax as a Tool for Racial Justice”.

Transcript of the show: https://taxjustice.net/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/The-Taxcast.-Sept-2022-Transcript.pdf

Links to past Taxcasts on reparational and tax justice, plus a video of the launch of new report: Tax as a Tool for Racial Justice and other useful resources available here: https://taxjustice.net/2022/09/19/tax-as-a-tool-for-racial-justice-new-report-launched/   

In this episode Taxcast host Naomi Fowler investigates the phenomenon of pop-up sweet shops on Oxford Street and the missing millions in taxes owed. The trail leads to the disgrace that is the UK's company registration process, making the UK Crime Central for any crook who comes along. It's not just the UK that exposes its citizens to risks, it hurts people across the world too.

Transcript of the show is available here: https://taxjustice.net/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/The-Taxcast-Transcript-July-2022.pdf 

Taxcast website with more Taxcasts: https://www.thetaxcast.com 

"It is ridiculous that you have to take more identification to get a library card to borrow a book than you do to create a limited liability company, which potentially is a cost to the taxpayer if you go bust, it is bonkers and it should stop" Graham Barrow of The Dark Money Files podcast.

"I came across a situation where for tax avoidance reasons, thousands of companies were being set up at the same time, with the same individual as the director. And in some cases there was 2000 companies being set up in the same day with the same individual as a director, and it wasn't raising any flag. You hear it all the time, you know, 'oh well, we'll learn the lessons,' but we never really seem to learn the lessons. The next scandal is a variation on a theme of the previous scandal.” ~ former tax inspector Ray McCann

"How did the UK end up at the centre of so many crimes? It's incredibly easy - go online, go onto the Companies House website - that's our company registry - pay 12 pounds and you too can have a shell company. I registered one myself - it took me less than 24 hours to receive the deeds showing I owned the company. I called it Crooked Crook Crook which I thought was pretty funny, but it turned out that actually I was being fairly unimaginative by the standards of international criminals." ~ journalist and anti-corruption campaigner, Oliver Bullough

Further reading and information here:

• BBC coverage of pop-up sweet shops on Oxford Street https://youtu.be/yXeXw91_H0k 
• Time to Return Integrity to the UK Corporate Registry. Royal United Services Institute for Defence and Security Studies video featuring Oliver Bullough https://youtu.be/LHTmRPtMXs8 
• The Dark Money Files podcast https://t.co/ktKHci06dK 
• German company registration process (for the purposes of comparison) https://www.lawyersgermany.com/company-registration-in-germany

Annual shareholder’s meetings used to be pretty staid and boring affairs. But, as inequality has boomed along with corporate profits, AGMs are becoming sites of protest. In this episode Naomi Fowler speaks to Katie Hepworth of PIRC and Jason Ward of CICTAR about the recent challenge to Amazon on tax transparency from shareholders. How did the challenge unfold and what was the result? What does it tell us about progress on principles that as societies are increasingly important to us?

A transcript available here (some is automated) https://taxjustice.net/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/The-Taxcast-transcript_June_22-1.pdf 

Our website with more podcasts is here: https://www.thetaxcast.com/ 

Further reading:

https://www.statista.com/statistics/272258/percentage-of-shareholders-in-the-total-population-of-selected-countries/

https://www.businessinsider.com/no-the-average-stock-holding-period-is-not-11-seconds-2010-10?r=US&IR=T

The Taxcast in 2014 covering Google's annual shareholder meeting tax transparency challenge: https://youtu.be/lFSfWvdedt4?t=1226 

Amazon’s Tribulations And The Future Of Tax Transparency, Nana Ama Sarfo https://www.forbes.com/sites/taxnotes/2022/05/31/amazons-tribulations-and-the-future-of-tax-transparency/