UK Uncut target charitable tax avoidance
According to UK Uncut, they are occupying Fortnum & Mason because of £40m tax avoidance by its owners, Wittington Investments. They’ve not said what the avoidance is but presumably it’s the fact that Wittington Investments does not pay tax on its income from Fortnum’s. That’s income it gets from Fortnum’s is not taxable as corporation tax has already been paid. Income paid up from Wittington Investments to the ultimate beneficiaries is taxable on the beneficiaries – in this case 80% of it is to the Garfield Weston Foundation, a charity!
(Hattip: Tim Worstall)
March 27, 2011 at 8:04 pm
Wow the taxes of 100k Fortnum made last year (after 6 years of losses) would really make an impact on the deficit.
Why Fortnum, not target Primark? They had 341 million of profit.
March 27, 2011 at 10:52 pm
[...] unfortunately, that’s as far as the evidence goes. Other bloggers (eg here, here, and, especially here) have been scratching their heads trying to understand more, but so far [...]