It looks like it boils down to the fact that in the UK companies are allowed to make tax-free 'royalty' and 'interest' payments to their offshore parents, resulting in tax avoidance. Surely there is a simple solution: treat all such payments as simple transfers rather than expenses. I'm not allowed to avoid tax by siphoning half my pre-tax income into a swiss bank account, so why should large companies be allowed to do this?
More details here: http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/10/15/us-britain-starbuc...
It looks like it boils down to the fact that in the UK companies are allowed to make tax-free 'royalty' and 'interest' payments to their offshore parents, resulting in tax avoidance. Surely there is a simple solution: treat all such payments as simple transfers rather than expenses. I'm not allowed to avoid tax by siphoning half my pre-tax income into a swiss bank account, so why should large companies be allowed to do this?