MPs last night demanded Vodafone to ‘do the right thing’ and pay its ‘fair share’.
Margaret Hodge, chairman of the Public Accounts Committee, who has led a probe into the tax affairs of Google, Starbucks and Amazon, said: ‘I don’t understand how anyone can justify such a massive windfall without handing any of it to the Exchequer.
‘If this is an instance in which Vodafone has simply played the system then clearly they themselves have an obligation to UK consumers, on whom they depend for their business, to do the right thing.’
They’re following the laws you voted for you cow.
Quite apart from the way that this has nothing at all to do with UK consumers (they’re selling their US company, get that?) the specific and particular law here is the 2009 Corporation Tax bill. Under G. Brown’s government, with Alistair Darling as Chancellor, you were a minister in that Government and you voted for it.
It is this which allows the money in the Dutch company to be paid as a dividend to the UK company and then passed through to shareholders without the company (although the shareholders will still get stung) paying tax.
And if there wasn’t that Dutch company in the way? If the shares were just held directly by the UK PLC? Then no tax would be payable by the company under the 2002 Finance Act. Which you also voted for. And you were a minister in the government that proposed said act.
Please, don’t be a scumbag hypocrite all your life.
Now that HodgeTheDodge has spoken out previously about the legal tax affairs of large corporations she has created a precedent. So she has to keep on speaking out even it she shoots herself in the foot because she has this naive belief that no one will look back at her record to check what she voted on. Either that or she can’t remember voting for it, which as chair of the PAC I would expect her to as it would be part of her job to know all the ins and outs of finance and tax. That she doesn’t is proof that Margaret Hodge is a normal MP, totally and utterly incompetent.
Ah, that use of the word “windfall” again. I invest wisely, reap a windfall.
They used this word when targetting the oil companies who had accidently invested in a few billion dollars worth of offshore and subsea infrastructure which had all come good, quite by chance.
I meant: I invest wisely, you reap a windfall.
Obviously.
Will she ever ‘do the right thing?’
‘Right thing’ being:
– shut up
– get an education
– get a memory
– resign
– pay more tax herself
Choose any one (or all five).
‘I don’t understand how anyone can justify such a massive windfall without handing any of it to the Exchequer.
…and I don’t see why it’s Vodaphone’s problem what Margaret Hodge’s remedial brain can and cannot understand.
And if I were their spokesman, I’d be really tempted to say that.
Can’t be arsed to look it up but wasn’t Hodge the one working an expenses fiddle with a caravan of some sort?. Small-scale rip-off but she is a small scale entity.
I’m reminded of a story I was told in the early days of GSM roll out. What became 121 were having a company meeting with the CEO and someone asked if they would be having a profit sharing scheme. He replied something like, yes and its open to anyone who joins the loss making scheme.
Probably apocryphal, but it highlights the problems with windfall taxes, we could be morally expected to cover windfall losses. Just well tax isn’t a moral issue.
My business operates as a profit-sharing enterprise. However, those who share in the profits are also, awkwardly, on the hook for the losses.
Apologies, Simon, you sort of got there before me.
Bilbaoboy>
‘The right thing’ to do in that context would be for her to hang herself from a lamp-post so the mob doesn’t have to have her death on its conscience.
“They’re following the laws you voted for you cow.”
“Please, don’t be a scumbag hypocrite all your life.”
Is there an e-mail address available where she can have all of this very slowly and carefully explained to her.
Margaret HodgeTheDoge address is
Margaret Hodge MP, House of Commons, London SW1A 0AA.
or email her at [email protected]
I would recommend snail mail as its too easy to file away emails (a few clicks of the mouse), but with a letter the staff have to open it and read it and file it.
I know this is all about tax but just look at this sentence again:-
“If this is an instance in which Vodafone has simply played the system then clearly they themselves have an obligation to UK consumers, on whom they depend for their business, to do the right thing.”
How far separated has thinking become from anything remotely rational when a business fulfills their contractual obligations to their customers (I presume that in return for the money which led to these profits, their customers received a service that they were all voluntarily willing to pay for and that, by and large, the customers were all happy with the service received?)
But for some reason known only to themselves, some people believe that the company owes their customers some of their money back?
Moreover, they also have to give some of that money to customers of competitors and people who are customers of neither… because they owe it… or something.
Seriously, what planet is this?
Welcome to the bitter and chilly embrace of “The Courageous State”.
A hotmail account FFS. I’d have thought parliament would have its own server, something like: margarethodge@livingthelifeofrileyatyourexpensewhilebeinguselessbastards.co.anotherplanet
I wonder what Vodafone’s shareholders (the only people with a dog in this fight) would say at the AGM if the directors said, “well, under the strict interpretation of the law we weren’t liable for any tax to HMRC, but Margaret Hodge said we had a moral duty so we sent them £20 billion of your money to keep her happy.” I think breach of fiduciary duty is still frowned upon, isn’t it?