Getting all fired up

No, this is not another rant about wood smoke! I’ve said my piece on that matter already this morning in the next item down.

One of the issues that people back in Britain are getting fired up about is the avoidance of tax by large corporations. The main targets seem to be Starbucks, Google and Amazon who are said to have robbed Britain of £32billion worth of tax according to the Daily Mail. I’ve no doubt they have done something similar in Spain and indeed in every country where they operate.

It seems though that football clubs in Britain also got in on the act. The article in the Mail goes on to say that English Premier league clubs had only paid £2.4m in tax on £150m in profits. The five top clubs that were cited include Manchester United, Tottenham Hotspur, Newcastle United, Wolverhampton Wanderers and Fulham who between them, made £70m in profits but paid no tax at all and their excuse was that they made losses in previous years.

The government says that, although these tax dodges are legal, they could be considered immoral. In my opinion, the fault lies not with the companies but with the loopholes in the system that allow them to happen. I’m sure we’d all pay 2% in tax if we could find a way of doing it.