Britain should abolish corporation tax

It's naive to expect large corporations to pay corporation tax if they can legally get out of doing so, says Matthew Lynn. Britain should be brave - and scrap the tax altogether.

The script is becoming very familiar. A big company finds itself under scrutiny over how much tax it pays. When the answer turns out to be "not very much", there is a chorus of disapproval.

Vodafone is the latest name to be caught out. Last weekend it found itself accused of depriving the Treasury of tens of millions in revenues. In the last tax year, its corporation tax payments in Britain fell to nothing from £140m a year earlier. That is despite the fact that it is one of the biggest companies in Britain, with one of the best-known brands.

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Matthew Lynn

Matthew Lynn is a columnist for Bloomberg, and writes weekly commentary syndicated in papers such as the Daily Telegraph, Die Welt, the Sydney Morning Herald, the South China Morning Post and the Miami Herald. He is also an associate editor of Spectator Business, and a regular contributor to The Spectator. Before that, he worked for the business section of the Sunday Times for ten years. 

He has written books on finance and financial topics, including Bust: Greece, The Euro and The Sovereign Debt Crisis and The Long Depression: The Slump of 2008 to 2031. Matthew is also the author of the Death Force series of military thrillers and the founder of Lume Books, an independent publisher.