Thread by @steveparks

Tonight I’m at the Houses of Parliament for a reception to celebrate companies who have achieved the @FairTaxMark (of which @weareconvivio is one), and campaign for more companies to pay their fair share. I’m going to attempt to recoup our tax bill on canapés - wish me luck.

Interestingly the speeches tonight by MPs echoed the discussions at #ProcurementUnconference19 today...
Margaret Hodge talked about the change in attitude since she chaired the public accounts committee...

// @Kershaw_MCIPS @EmiliaCedeno82 @noursidawi

She said that where it used to be a badge of pride to pay as little as possible, and avoidance by big companies was ignored, now it is a mark of shame not to pay fair tax, and companies are rightly challenged on it...

She said that members of the public have their tax calculated and paid via PAYE and they have no option but to pay fair tax. But for the companies they work for or buy from, they get to calculate this themselves and use complex schemes to reduce their tax...

Andrew Mitchell said that he and Margaret had written a piece in The Times in which they said that being shown to pay a fair amount of tax should be a requirement of winning business from the government...

...he says that companies that use complex structures to move their incomes around and avoid tax should be precluded from working with the government. This is something that came up at the government procurement event a few times today...

...he also says that the cross-party group of MPs, led by him and Margaret, have been able to make some progress now precisely because it is a hung parliament - 5 or 6 Tory MPs along with opposition parties can vote things through...

...therefore they have succeeded in pushing through measures for open registers of beneficial ownership of companies in overseas territories, and are working to push through the same for crown dependencies...

...so it’s clear that an influential group of MPs are pushing for companies to pay fair tax, that ethical SMEs are campaigning for it - and that civil servants are receptive and enthusiastic to find ways to make it work...

... the message is simple: businesses that operate in the UK benefit hugely from public services - education, health, transport infrastructure, legal system, security and more. Therefore, like citizens, they must make their fair contribution to those public services...

...and government should only do business with companies that do pay their fair share, and are transparent about it so that it can be objectively assessed. That principle is right on its own, but also is a powerful lever for government to influence the practices of business.

That’s all for tonight, but I’m going to be picking up this conversation in the coming weeks.
Goodnight!

For some reason, this thread on government procurement and taxation hasn’t gone viral 🤔

Oooh, canapé update... turns out Margaret Hodge and Andrew Mitchell do a good line in canapés - well above the M&S party platter. However, I still fell a long way short of my target to recoup the @weareconvivio taxes, so it’s a net win for the government. Fair Taxes 1, Canapés 0