beorhthelm
A. Virgo, Football Genius
- Jul 21, 2003
- 36,019
The reason is that the wicked EU, has told Luxembourg they cannot allow McDonalds to dodge tax, so they come to Britain to dodge tax instead. The benefit to Britain is, we get a little bit of tax on profits they took elsewhere. This is great for us, until they spot a cheaper option.
At some point, to prevent big companies driving their corp tax down by negotiating a sweet deal in this place or that, maybe a bunch of Nations could get together and set some rules so that Companies actually meet their social responsibilities, maybe a sort of Union of Europe or something.
the irony here is that they set up in Luxembourg in the first place due to the EU rules, and can move revenue around between countries because of international agreements already in place - in other words they are using the system as it has been intended. the only thing the EU can hope to achieve (or anyone else) is uniform tax harmonisation, which would require further integration and EU fiscal policy. not going to happen any time soon.