Big companies should pay as little tax as they can get away with

Across Britain, protestors are demonstrating against firms they think don't pay their fair share in taxes. But corporations in the UK already pay far too much tax, says Matthew Lynn. And big companies have a duty to fight back.

It was the last thing busy shoppers battling their way through the snow needed on the last weekend before Christmas. Across the country, tax protestors staged flash demonstrations against companies they believed were avoiding paying their fair share in taxes. Marks and Spencer's Oxford Street store was closed for 30 minutes as a hundred protesters staged a sit-down demonstration. Topshop, Boots, HSBC and Vodafone have also been targeted.

Some credit must go to UK Uncut, the online campaigning group that had led the fight against corporate tax evasion. It has used Facebook and Twitter to organise instant events, and has brilliantly stage-managed its protests to create as much media impact as possible. It has been slick, smart and effective. Yet most of the companies targeted have remained silent. When they have responded, they have mouthed a few pointless, jargon-filled platitudes about how they have a duty to their shareholders to be as tax-efficient as possible. Indeed, they do have a duty to their shareholders. It is to fight back with steely determination against these campaigns and to argue the case for lower, not higher, corporate taxes. If they don't, they will find themselves getting bigger and bigger bills from the Inland Revenue and it is their shareholders who will suffer the most from that.

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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.