UK tax regime 'attractive' to investors, says KPMG

UK tax regime 'attractive' to investors, says KPMG

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KPMG has published its annual survey of tax competitiveness for 2013, and said that findings showed the UK as remaining an attractive place for investment.

The UK, Ireland, Switzerland, Luxembourg and the Netherlands were top of the table as the most attractive playing fields on tax for investment. 

The UK's stable and simplistic tax regime is more important to investors than low tax rates, KPMG said. 

But according to respondents, the OECD's work on base erosion and profit shifting could reduce the UK's tax yield, it warned. 

Chris Morgan, head of tax policy at the Big Four firms said that the current debate on tax threatens to "undermine" the UK's progress that has been made in making the UK have an attractive tax regime. 

"Undoubtedly there are areas of the UK and international tax system which need to be addressed; our sample was almost unanimously supportive of the OECD’s work on ‘Base Erosion and Profit Shifting’, for example, although we hope that government will listen carefully to their warning that some of the mooted changes could result in their paying less not more tax in the UK before committing to firm changes in this area," he said. 

Do you think the debate on tax avoidance is putting people off investing and do you think the UK has a particularly attractive tax regime? 

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By exceljockey
18th Dec 2013 09:13

I doubt that the debate is having much of an impact

on investing in the UK. I think the executives of the large corporations that have been subject to the debates are sensible enough to understand that it is political posturing and has very little substance behind it. When you want to be part of the global economy you have to accept competition for taxes from other countries and that some tax will be leaked from the economy to other jurisdictions. Executives and politicians alike both know this and understand this. The general voting population might not and so a lot of hot air has been expended. What would be nice is for a politician to stand up and tell like it is but we all know this will be followed by "the PM is more interested in big business than the people" comments from the man who suggested freezing energy prices was an effective economic policy. I think the govt suggesting interfering in the free market would be much more frightening to possible investors than a debate on tax avoidance.

I think possibly there should be a cruder yardstick for naming and shaming - total taxes paid (incl corp tax, net VAT, Er's NIC's and council taxes) as a percentage of turnover. That way you would see the net benefit of that organisation to the economy. I feel Starbucks was particularily unfairly targeted as yes, they pay little corp tax, but how much council tax are they paying with all those high street locations and employers NIC's?

With corp tax heading to 21% I think that is very competitive and certainly wouldn't stop me from investing. 

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