In principle, a company can still lose money and pay corporation tax (they do not get taxed on accounting profits).

Have they lost money in the UK?

I read somewhere that their UK and US operations had not been profitable. Whether that was all activities and whether or not it was an actual loss I do not know as I guess you don't. However, it is entirely feasible given the amount of losses RBS has incurred. Furthermore, as I said it could pay tax here without making a profit. As was said above £1.2 B / $ 1.2 B of fines would reduced accounting profits but not taxable ones. So they could make, say 0.5B loss here but pay tax on 0.7 B (all other things being equal).

I did and what he wrote, as I explained, was deliberatley slanted to achieve a conclusion he wanted. If his averaging had have been detrimental to his argument he would have considered things on a more realistic basis. He should know better.

Until there is a global tax system that will be the case. Governments choose to be grabbed by the short and curiles they can easily be tough if they wish. Look at the way the US has treated European banks, BP, etc. The fact that our government is so soft is not the fault of the companies it is due to inept politicians and a wet electorate.

Yeah, I know. Poor form ain't it?

If his averaging had have been detrimental to his argument he wouldn't have had an argument. It's either reasonable to apply the formula he did to apportion profits or it isn't but the results of applying it are as he stated.

It is not reasonable. Therefore he has no point.



What is a good point is the one he makes about country by country reporting. That would increase transparency and catch the rogues, especially if management charges, royalties, intra-country transfers had to be spelt out in detail and if transactions with low-tax jurisdictions had to be shown and summarised as to their effect.

So a bank that gets caught out laundering $hundreds of billions and pays the US a $1.2bn fine, then swans around shifting money across borders to minimise tax payments, awards its CEO with a bonus? The cu[in[/it should be in jail.



[url=http://www.businessinsider.com/elizabeth-warren-hsbc-money-laundering-2013-3At least Elizabeth Warren seems to be gunning for 'em[/url

That's because no one normal-sized country can afford to go it alone ... but if a group of them decided to do something about it, their collective elbow could have the power ... they could tell any company to get stuffed unless they toe the line.



It would have to be a large collective.



Like the EU, for example.

That is a matter of opinion and I would say he does have a point. He is simply applying known formula to illustrate what contribution of group profits should be attributed to the UK.







And because it isn't transparent he made his calculations.

Haven't this bunch of shysters decided against legislating for transparent reporting because it would be "too difficult for multi-nationals to administer"? Dodging the fooking tax seems to present them with little difficulty