Head of the public accounts committee urges HMRC officials and Treasury ministers to examine potential $35bn tax savings of Vodafone deal
What?
Tax analysts believe Vodafone can structure its deal so as to reduce tax to $5bn, significantly less than the $40bn that could be due.
Who are these shambling cretins?
To get to a $40 billion figure you’ve got to assume that corporation tax is due on the total receipts from the deal. Which is simply nonsense: you would only ever pay tax on the profit made, not the turnover.
But no doubt the ignorants over at UKUncut will start claiming that it’s a $40 billion bill being avoided soon enough.
Margaret Hodge voted in favour of the budget resolutions that included the substantial shareholding exemption which would specifically exempt the transaction were it to take place in the UK.
http://www.publicwhip.org.uk/division.php?date=2002-04-23&number=216&mpn=Margaret_Hodge&mpc=Barking&house=commons
Wait a minute, Ben. Are you saying Hodge is a hypocrite?
No Tim, £84bn (eighty-four billion pounds).
UK Uncut @UKuncut 16m
Gov serious about #taxavoidance? NAH. #Vodafone save £84b in tax in new deal and have never paid Corp tax to UK!
https://twitter.com/UKuncut/status/374563855810060288
Hang on, Tim, you’ve inexplicably omitted the word “cunts”. Are you feeling OK?
Hodges’ rant is even more ridiculous than that.
She says that even if Vodaphone are complying with the law, they should “do the right thing” and pay over some tax. The stupid cow doesn’t know this is actually very difficult to do without the Treasury breaching the Theft Act. Even though it is not subject to UK law this would seem to me to be an immoral stance.
Put in a wider context, Hodges’ attitude is that of a monarch who rules by whimsy. Anything that is done by anyone can be interfered with by Hodge simply because she doesn’t like it.
Difficult to run a modern civilisation like that, as the USSR and GDR found out.
@ john miller
wifelet persuaded me to re-watch some Blackadder 2 last night. Maybe Lady Hodge has watched too much of it?
From Vodafone’s Investor Relations website:
“We intend to return all of the Verizon shares and US$23.9 billion of cash to Vodafone shareholders (the “Return of Value”) totalling US$84.0 billion (£54.3 billion), equivalent to 112p per share. “
http://www.vodafone.com/content/index/investors/verizon_wireless_transaction.yes.html
So thats the 84 billion- it’s dollars.
So presumably UK Uncut thinks that if Vodafone sells $84bn of overseas assets, it should pay UK tax of £84bn on the deal.
I think Dearime has it right.
(OK, I have some Vodafone shares, so maybe I’m The Man they’re sticking it to.)
So she votes for the SSE and for the Dividend Exemption and then castigates the taxpayer group that takes advantage in precisely the way envisaged by the legislation. She is fucking shameless.
She probably didn’t understand what she voted for.
More than anything: won’t there be any tax impact on the Vodafone shareholders through these mega dividends? I would expect there will be which will lead to some monies making their way to the HMRC, no?
If Vodafone remits the profit to the UK in order to pay many £billion to shareholders, some tax will be payable. If Lady Hodge does not know UK tax laws, should she be chairwoman of the Public Accounts Committee?