Would you scalp George Osborne

bigmat

Sounds like a good match up. You could do Blears for a warm up.

Stevo_666

notsoblue wrote:

The implication is that Vodafone avoided all the complicated (and highly inconvenient) tax in the UK, and then when the HMRC disagreed with it, successfully lobbied them down. So all this talk of legality is a bit of a red herring given that (some might say) Vodafone managed to manipulate proceedings before there was a formal legal challenge.

The real issue here for me is why a company like Vodafone can so easily manipulate the tax system. Can't really attribute a large multinational any kind of morality, it does what it needs to do to. The whole thing seems like a failing of the Exchequer and the HMRC to me.

:roll: You're not listening are you.

They didn't manipulate the system. iI's perfectly normal for a company and HMRC to have negotiations about a tax point they disagree on and reach an agreement before going through the cost and effort of going to court. HMRC decided not to take it further after discussing the specifics of the case and the application of the rules with Vodafone. As mentioned above, if HMRC thought they had half a chance of winning, they would have gone through the courts.

To some extent I agree with you that it's a failing of the Government, but as TWH points out, when you are a mutlinational trading in umpteen countries, things get very complex indeed - probably too complex for any person or even Government to have all the bases covered. It's just the way it is - tax has to refelect the complexity of modern business.