Corporate taxpayers

[V8mate]

Saw this table setting out the biggest corporation tax payers in this evening's paper:

1. BP £5.2 billion
2. Royal Dutch Shell £5.1 billion
3. GlaxoSmithKline £2.2 billion
4. AstraZeneca £2 billion
5. BG £1.6 billion
6. Rio Tinto £1.3 billion
7. Goldman Sachs (UK) £1.2 billion
8. ConocoPhillips £1.2 billion
9. BAT £1.1 billion
10. Unilever £1.1 billion
11. Barclays £1 billion
12. Standard Chartered £1 billion
13. Network Rail £900 million
14. Prudential £900 million
15. HSBC £900 million
16. Tesco £800 million
17. National Grid £800 million
18. Rolls-Royce £700 million
19. Aviva £700 million
20. Anglo American £700 million


Now I'm no socialist and the last to advocate state support of anything at all, but given both the current and recent (last 15 years) political landscape, I found it bizarre that Network Rail - a private company by name, but which is responsible to no-one and has to behave as if it were a public sector corporation in many other ways - pays more corporation tax than Tesco!

Surely a bizarre state of affairs for any government who is/was serious about culpably upping the railway's performance?

[James P]

Hmm Vodafone not on the list? Seen the last couple of Private Eyes? £6bn supposedly written off/ not collected if they are to be believed.

[glazbagun]

RBS must've had a really big fall. Weren't they number 1 a couple of years running, or did I make that up?

[plasticpig]

I would guess that's because Tesco spend large amounts of money on tax avoidance advice.

[Eric Mc]

Is this purely down to Corporation Taxes or are they also including the other taxes businesses pay - VAT, PAYE, Employer's NIC, environmental charges, special fuel duties etc.

[Digga]

musclecarmad said:

plasticpig said:

I would guess that's because Tesco spend large amounts of money on tax avoidance advice.

so do all of them!

just think guys, without BP and shell we'd be knackered.

BP pay about 7 times the corporation tax of tesco!!!

Asda was paying a lot more copr tax here, pre-leveraged Wall Mart takeover. Now check their figures.

This is one of the most difficult issues surrounding the UK's open-armed approach to "inward investment". It is not a stance replicated in Germany, for example, and you begin to wonder whether that is one of the factors which is serving them so well....

[V8mate]

Eric Mc said:

Is this purely down to Corporation Taxes or are they also including the other taxes businesses pay - VAT, PAYE, Employer's NIC, environmental charges, special fuel duties etc.

Just Corporation Tax as far as the article suggested.

[ninja-lewis]

For 2008-09, Network Rail appear to have a one-off charge for the Abolition of Industrial Buildings Allowances that doubled their tax liability for the year. The year before their tax liability was less than £450m on a similar level of profit.

[V8mate]

ninja-lewis said:

For 2008-09, Network Rail appear to have a one-off charge for the Abolition of Industrial Buildings Allowances that doubled their tax liability for the year. The year before their tax liability was less than £450m on a similar level of profit.

Well sleuthed!

[johnfm]

£30 bio from the top 20 companies. That is about 4% of annual tax revenues.

[V8mate]

johnfm said:

£30 bio from the top 20 companies. That is about 4% of annual tax revenues.

Indeed. Hence the title of the article: Here's an idea: Listen to those who cough up the most

About half way down the page.