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TUC welcomes OECD clampdown on corporate tax dodgers

Welcoming new OECD proposals announced recently (Friday) - for clamping down on multinational corporations' tax dodging - TUC General Secretary Frances O'Grady said:

'It's good news that the OECD has recognised the need for bold action to stop the likes of Amazon, Google and Starbucks shifting money around the world to reduce their tax bills. A new global law against 'double non-taxation' is vitally important and we want the British government to signal immediately that it will comply.

'Polling carried out by the International Trade Union Confederation this week shows that people want the global giants of the corporate world to pay more tax. They will back action to stop them using globalisation to avoid paying what they owe.

'The OECD should be given the chance to make these proposals work, but we are still concerned that multinationals will use tricks like 'intra-group transfer pricing' to avoid tax. While we welcome the steps taken by the OECD today, it should monitor the impact so that if these proposals don't solve the problem, it can move immediately to tougher action that will.'

NOTES TO EDITORS:

- Companies often justify their tax dodging by saying that if they are taxed on operations covering more than one country they will be paying tax twice on the same activities/profits. What the OECD is concerned about is that these companies actually aren't paying enough taxes anywhere - which is 'double non-taxation'.

- 'Intra-group transfer pricing' involves a company charging for a service carried out in one bit of the company to another bit of the company at a lower or higher price than is 'real' to take advantage of different tax systems.

- Polling carried out this week by the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) across 13 countries, revealed that 86 per cent of voters want to stop large and multinational corporations avoiding tax, with four-fifths calling for higher taxes on large and multinational corporations.

- In the UK, the figures were even higher with 97 per cent of voters wanting action on tax avoidance and 88 per cent wanting higher taxes on multinationals - in both cases, the highest figures of all 13 countries surveyed.

- A copy of the ITUC poll can be found at - www.ituc-csi.org

- All TUC press releases can be found at www.tuc.org.uk

- Follow the TUC on Twitter: @tucnews

Contacts:

Media enquiries:

Liz Chinchen T: 020 7467 1248 M: 07778 158175 E:
media@tuc.org.uk
Alex Rossiter T: 020 7467 1337 M: 07887 572130 E: arossiter@tuc.org.uk


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