Richard Branson's personal company, Virgin Group Holdings, is based in the Channel Islands and its hundreds of subsidiaries are carefully placed globally, for instance Virgin Enterprise is based in Switzerland.
Branson, who lives on "Necker Island" in the beautiful British Virgin Islands tax haven, warns against leaving the EU. Why do the CEO's and owners of corporations warn against Britain leaving the EU even when they do not live in the UK? The answer must lie in their business interests.
This desire to place corporations above people is particularly clear from the example of Stuart Rose, the ex-CEO of Marks and Spencer, and Head of Britain Stronger In Europe, who helped to set up a system to aid Corporation Tax Avoidance by British companies by winning a legal case in which M&S was allowed to shift profits and losses subject to corporation tax between countries in the EU.
The head of Vodafone, Vittorio Colao, also warns against leaving the EU. Vodafone is a "British" company which has transferred to Luxembourg to use EU mechanisms for Corporate tax avoidance.
The EU has been a huge benefit to Corporations who are progressively using its labyrinths of tax laws to skip tax:
It is difficult to find the amount of UK corporation tax paid by large companies, the "tax" entry in their Accounts is usually a composite of all types of taxes from a variety of countries. Here is a list of the corporation tax paid by some of the UK's finest:
So what do large corporations want from the EU? First and foremost they want to continue to avoid paying tax. It goes deeper than this however. When the German BMW instructed its UK workers to oppose Brexit they mentioned the "free movement of people". Why does this benefit corporations?
Stuart Rose, the Head of the IN campaign and a long term corporate boss stated publicly that a downside of leaving the EU would be an increase in the pay of UK workers. So, from the corporate viewpoint, the free movement of labour is about a desire to minimise wages.
Another desire of corporates, that was implicit in the letter sent by BMW to its UK workers, is to obtain qualified workers without training them in the UK. This is a very important point: when UK society was circumscribed by borders its government realised that the needs of industry had to be met from within the population. To achieve this they had to pay for the education and training of professionals and skilled workers. Industry also had to train staff. Now the borders are open the free movement of people allows sufficient staff to be obtained at all times without having to match UK training to UK needs.
Of course, once society becomes used to "off the shelf" qualified staff it becomes impossible to justify the government subsidy of training. Why pay if you can get staff for free? Why subsidise training if the staff will go elsewhere? This generates two types of trained staff in the UK:- the children of wealthy parents who float off as if they were heaven born, and the rest who acquire huge debts that prevent them from ever becoming as wealthy as their heaven born peers.
Why else might corporates prefer an EU to national governments, other than avoiding tax and access to trained staff without responsibility for training them? Most important of all is that they can be mobile. Vodafone is a good example, being based in Luxembourg is the optimal position for a corporate in the EU and they can just set up a small office and be "based" in the place that gives them greatest advantage. This allows them to rise above governments. They are freed from many of the obligations to the societies where they make money.
Corporations are also mobile in other ways, for instance HSBC threatens to move its headquarters out of the UK with every corporate regulation proposed by government and large manufacturers play governments against each other for the location and relocation of factories. The EU puts the corporations in control.
David Cameron is a huge friend of the investment Banks and probably got them "off the hook" from legal action after the banking crisis. The investment banks are also playing this tax avoidance game for all they are worth:
The Corporates of the EU are putting a huge effort into the EU Referendum. They see Brexit as a threat to a whole way of life.
See also:
The Imbalance of UK-EU Trade and its Consequences
5/3/16
Branson, who lives on "Necker Island" in the beautiful British Virgin Islands tax haven, warns against leaving the EU. Why do the CEO's and owners of corporations warn against Britain leaving the EU even when they do not live in the UK? The answer must lie in their business interests.
This desire to place corporations above people is particularly clear from the example of Stuart Rose, the ex-CEO of Marks and Spencer, and Head of Britain Stronger In Europe, who helped to set up a system to aid Corporation Tax Avoidance by British companies by winning a legal case in which M&S was allowed to shift profits and losses subject to corporation tax between countries in the EU.
The head of Vodafone, Vittorio Colao, also warns against leaving the EU. Vodafone is a "British" company which has transferred to Luxembourg to use EU mechanisms for Corporate tax avoidance.
The EU has been a huge benefit to Corporations who are progressively using its labyrinths of tax laws to skip tax:
It is difficult to find the amount of UK corporation tax paid by large companies, the "tax" entry in their Accounts is usually a composite of all types of taxes from a variety of countries. Here is a list of the corporation tax paid by some of the UK's finest:
Stuart Rose, the Head of the IN campaign and a long term corporate boss stated publicly that a downside of leaving the EU would be an increase in the pay of UK workers. So, from the corporate viewpoint, the free movement of labour is about a desire to minimise wages.
Another desire of corporates, that was implicit in the letter sent by BMW to its UK workers, is to obtain qualified workers without training them in the UK. This is a very important point: when UK society was circumscribed by borders its government realised that the needs of industry had to be met from within the population. To achieve this they had to pay for the education and training of professionals and skilled workers. Industry also had to train staff. Now the borders are open the free movement of people allows sufficient staff to be obtained at all times without having to match UK training to UK needs.
Of course, once society becomes used to "off the shelf" qualified staff it becomes impossible to justify the government subsidy of training. Why pay if you can get staff for free? Why subsidise training if the staff will go elsewhere? This generates two types of trained staff in the UK:- the children of wealthy parents who float off as if they were heaven born, and the rest who acquire huge debts that prevent them from ever becoming as wealthy as their heaven born peers.
Why else might corporates prefer an EU to national governments, other than avoiding tax and access to trained staff without responsibility for training them? Most important of all is that they can be mobile. Vodafone is a good example, being based in Luxembourg is the optimal position for a corporate in the EU and they can just set up a small office and be "based" in the place that gives them greatest advantage. This allows them to rise above governments. They are freed from many of the obligations to the societies where they make money.
Corporations are also mobile in other ways, for instance HSBC threatens to move its headquarters out of the UK with every corporate regulation proposed by government and large manufacturers play governments against each other for the location and relocation of factories. The EU puts the corporations in control.
David Cameron is a huge friend of the investment Banks and probably got them "off the hook" from legal action after the banking crisis. The investment banks are also playing this tax avoidance game for all they are worth:
See also:
The Imbalance of UK-EU Trade and its Consequences
5/3/16
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