DAVID Cameron has promised to ensure that foreign companies found to be legally avoiding paying corporation tax in Britain have to pay their fair share.
The Prime Minister told a business audience in Lancashire that the likes of Amazon, Starbucks and Google, which avoided paying corporation tax, lacked "moral scruples".
Last month the House of Commons Public Accounts Committee issued a report accusing Starbucks, Amazon and Google of "immorally minimising their tax obligations" in the UK by funnelling earnings offshore.
"We've got to crack that (tax evasion by multinationals), you're absolutely right," Cameron said in response to a businessman's question about why big foreign companies have been allowed to get away with paying next to nothing in tax.
"This is a really important issue. I think we're actually offering a fair deal to businesses. We're saying, 'Look, we're going to have a really low rate of corporation tax' but I want to make damn sure that those companies pay it.
"It's simply not fair and not right what some of them are doing by saying, 'I've got lots of sales here in the UK but I'm going to pay a sort of royalty fee to another company that I own in another country that has some special tax dispensation'."
Mr Cameron said he had put it "at the top of the agenda" for the G8, as well as tackling it nationally.
He says a crackdown can only be effective if countries around the world act collectively. Britain, along with France and Germany has asked the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development to look into whether tax loopholes can be closed.
Mr Cameron called for a crackdown on aggressive tax avoidance in a letter to other leaders of the G8 nations earlier this week.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article