FakeCharity Du Jour

The BBC wheels out its template yet again...

The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) is proposing to reduce unannounced workplace inspections by a third, the BBC has learned. A leaked letter from the HSE outlines plans to withdraw inspections from entire sectors of industry, including some where "significant risk" remains...

The move has caused concern among health and safety campaigners. Professor Rory O'Neill, editor of the safety magazine Hazards, believes it signals a fundamental departure from the HSE's role as safety watchdog. "The HSE's job is to make the workplace safe, but now it's being explicitly instructed not to do that job right," he said, "The implication for health and safety is that workplaces will become deregulated."

The HSE are in my bad books for perpetuating myths about white asbestos, but who be the publishers of Hazards?

Ah... their website says "Sponsored by National Union of Teachers, Unite The Union and Unison - The Public Services Union.

"Advertiser WPP may join tax exodus"

Another one bites the dust.

This exodus could be stemmed easily and cheaply, see here for short answer or here for more detailed policies.

"Publisher deserts UK tax regime"

"UK publishing and events firm United Business Media has proposed creating a new parent company based in Ireland, where taxes are lower than in Britain. The 90-year old firm, which owns trade titles Property Week and The Publican, said it reflects that 85% of its profits now come from abroad."

It's the "85% of its profits now come from abroad" that is the key to all this. Remember that it makes no difference to your overseas tax bill where the holding company is located. The relevant bit is how those profits are taxed when the overseas subsidiaries pay up a dividend to the holding company.

The UK and Ireland are the only major countries in Europe which tax overseas dividends in full*. The UK gives a credit for overseas corporation tax already paid, so extra tax is due if the holding company receives dividends from countries with an effective rate less than 28%. The same applies in Ireland, of course, but they only pay further corporation tax if the overseas subsidiary pays corporation tax of less than 12.5%, which is very few countries indeed.

Lord Forsyth's Tax Reform Commission reckoned that moving to the European system, whereby overseas dividends are either 100% exempt (or 95% exempt in some countries) would cost less than £1 billion**, i.e. chickenfeed in the grander scheme of things.

* See AGN European Parent Companies Survey.

** See Proposal 20, page 143. Also interesting is Figure 23 on page 75.