Some thoughts on the @fairtaxmark which recently certified AMT coffee
https://fairtaxmark.net/amt-coffee-fair-tax/ … (1/10)
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Public controversies over tax affairs of businesses tend to fall into the #taxmantra cycle. Biz gets criticised. Biz says “we pay tax according to the law”. Critics say “we don't think its moral/fair”. There are no clear criteria, so debate is frustrating & confused
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Idea of
@Fairtaxmark is attractive –clear criteria and kitemark. Announcement on AMT Coffee makes much of contrasting AMT (a ‘fair tax payer’) with Starbucks (presumably not a fair tax payer?) and suggests this would make it a ‘natural fit for public sector procurers’.Show this thread -
But what is it that AMT that has done which is good? It has a v.short published tax policy http://amtcoffee.co.uk/about/fair-tax/ which is less than the standard UK gov requires for larger companies. And its statutory accounts are downloadable at Companies House https://beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/company/02857483/filing-history …
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Fairtaxmark works by judging a company’s public reports against a scorecard of criteria https://fairtaxmark.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/MNC-Criteria-Notes.pdf … The scorecard is not published (I don’t know why- it really should be) but you can test the criteria with AMT’s reports yourself.pic.twitter.com/AiEURi88OR
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It looks like a lot of points are for the normal disclosures of a UK Ltd company. Then there are points for country by country reporting. AMT breaks its accounts up into UK and ‘rest of Europe’. But you have to cross reference with the website to work out this means Ireland!
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The substantive criteria on are quite limited. It t seems like most UK (or UK+ Ireland companies) could get the FTM on basic reporting. Harder for UK multinationals and impossible (no criteria set) for non UK MNCs.pic.twitter.com/9RVI0JENEr
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FTM criteria don’t cover an issue which shows up in AMT’s accounts. The Directors have an interest free loan of around 1 million from the company.
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Is this OK? FTM founder and technical committee member Richard Murphy said “It's just about impossible to think this is motivated by anything but tax avoidance“ about a similar case a couple of years ago https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/jan/27/peter-mandelson-400000-pound-tax-free-loan …pic.twitter.com/KH9ljsPATB
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The FTM criteria don’t really help us with clarifying the grey area between totally vanilla unobjectionable tax planning and something that could get you in the newspapers repeating the
#taxmantra . 10/10Show this thread -
[My view is that it is useful to clarify expectations on corporate responsibility/ reporting on tax, w potential for standardising -- but the certification model (like product certification fairtrade ) was not the road to go down, because that debate hasn’t been had]
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End of conversation
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