"I can't register myself as a pigeonhole in Luxembourg to almost wipe out my tax bill, but Vodafone can."
In fact, Vodafone pay a great deal of tax: they turn over one-sixth of their sales revenue to HMRC in VAT, another 20+% of their staff salaries in income tax, a further 14% in National Insurance, billions of pounds more in spectrum licensing fees, a Climate Change Levy on all their energy usage, commercial rates on all their premises (retail stores and all their network sites)... Yes, they did pay the UK government little or no tax on the transfer of assets between Vodafone Germany and Vodafone Luxemburg (though quite why such a transaction would be subject to any UK tax in the first place is debatable!) For all the complaints from the likes of UKUncut, Vodafone already contribute a great deal more to the state's coffers than any of the Uncut people are ever likely to have paid in their lives.
Personally, I feel that it is wrong for our "education, prosperity and health" to rely on the government hiding part of the cost in our mobile phone bills, another part in the bill every time we fuel up a car ... the failure of that cost-hiding mechanism may be inconvenient, but better to find a more honest and direct way to fund them than to attempt to resurrect the cost-hiding.
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In fact, Vodafone pay a great deal of tax: they turn over one-sixth of their sales revenue to HMRC in VAT, another 20+% of their staff salaries in income tax, a further 14% in National Insurance, billions of pounds more in spectrum licensing fees, a Climate Change Levy on all their energy usage, commercial rates on all their premises (retail stores and all their network sites)... Yes, they did pay the UK government little or no tax on the transfer of assets between Vodafone Germany and Vodafone Luxemburg (though quite why such a transaction would be subject to any UK tax in the first place is debatable!) For all the complaints from the likes of UKUncut, Vodafone already contribute a great deal more to the state's coffers than any of the Uncut people are ever likely to have paid in their lives.
Personally, I feel that it is wrong for our "education, prosperity and health" to rely on the government hiding part of the cost in our mobile phone bills, another part in the bill every time we fuel up a car ... the failure of that cost-hiding mechanism may be inconvenient, but better to find a more honest and direct way to fund them than to attempt to resurrect the cost-hiding.