James Moore: Giants that dodge corporation tax can find ways round other levies too

Outlook PricewaterhouseCoopers produces a counterweight today to the narrative that holds big companies up as nasty, tax-dodging cheats.

Au contraire, says the accountancy firm. Our research among the FTSE 100 and other big companies shows that it actually provided a record £80bn in tax revenues during the year to the end of March, up 2.1 per cent on the previous year.

Of course, that includes things like the income tax paid by employees. The total tax actually borne by big companies was a little over £20bn (just 0.1 per cent up on the previous year). That is largely down to a lower contribution from North Sea oil, as opposed to widespread tax avoidance. But what’s really interesting about the figures is the way in which companies’ contributions to the society on which they rely are changing.

When PwC started its study back in 2005 every £1 paid in corporation tax was matched by £1 from other levies: business rates, employer national insurance contributions, VAT that couldn’t be reclaimed, and on.

That ratio has changed quite radically. Now, for every £1 in corporation tax, firms bear £3.27 in other taxes. Last year it was £2.86, and the trend is set to continue given the Government’s aim of introducing a 20p corporation tax rate.

Should that concern us? In some respects, no. That “tax-dodging cheats” narrative developed as it became clear how easy it was for companies to avoid corporation tax by clever accounting and doing deals with certain European territories (I’m looking at you Ireland, the Netherlands, Luxembourg). The levies that are replacing it as a source of revenue for the Government appear rather harder to avoid.

But they can still be mitigated by some, with malign consequences for others. Amazon, which is seemingly disinclined to pay corporation tax, has kept its business rates down by basing its warehouses in cheap, out-of-town locations, thus solidifying its competitive advantage against bricks-and-mortar shops in higher-cost high streets – to the long-term detriment of those high streets.

And whether it’s a good thing to be replacing the revenue from a tax on profits with that from a tax on jobs (employee national insurance contributions) is a debate we perhaps ought to be having.