I have been getting indignant over the last few days about the various multinational corporations, some of which have the nerve to preach about all the good that they do, which so arrange their affairs as to pay little if any corporation tax in countries where they do plenty of business, in particular this one.
Then today I read all about the British Virgin Islands (http://www.bvi.gov.vg/) in the Guardian, a place with a population of around 25,000 and with government spending of perhaps £200m a year, of which perhaps half is derived from fees associated with the registration of around 1 million more or less dodgy companies. Companies which only exist to facilitate tax avoidance or to confuse the paper trail of more or less criminal activities. Confuse to the point of confusing any form of enforcement activity.
Our own government - ultimately responsible for the goings on in this place - won't do anything because otherwise we would have to stump up the £100m which would then be needed to balance the books. All very shabby.
No doubt the smooth talkers in the FO would explain, if cornered, that if we don't do it someone else will. The same defense as is used when selling outrageously expensive and unnecessary military toys to poor countries in places like Africa. But as far as I am concerned it stinks and should never have been allowed in the first place. A blot on our landscape which makes it hard for us to get all high and mighty about the aforesaid multinationals. The least we could do is shut the business down. I would happily forego that extra emptying of my orange wheelie bin if that is what it would take.
PS: not been able to verify any of the numbers at the BVI website. Not quite up to the standard of your average government department. But then it is only about the size of one of our parishes, never mind local authority.
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