The European Union announced its plans to launch a tax avoidance probe into prominent furniture retailer Ikea late last year. The move is part of Brussel’s aggressive crackdown on corporate tax avoidance throughout Europe.
At a UN speech in December, the leader of the UK Labour party called on governments across the world to tackle tax evasion.
Unlike corporations, which distribute profits to shareholders via dividends, pass through businesses’ profits go right to their owners, essentially “passing through” the books of the business.
As the first major reform of the US tax code since 1986, President Trump’s Tax Act was signed into law on December 22, 2017.
A British fisherman was sentenced to 14 months in prison for tax evasion. David McHale, who works as a self-employed fisherman in Scotland, avoided paying a tax of over £40,000, admitting to a fraudulent scheme that allowed him to evade payment.
In the UK, it is estimated that over 30 percent of self-assessment taxpayers – those that file their taxes themselves as opposed to having an accountant doing it on their behalf – underpay their taxes.
Does Queen Elizabeth pay tax? It’s a question that has been getting quite a lot of attention recently – particularly given the Queen’s name in the recently released Paradise Papers give rise to allegations of tax avoidance.
President Trump’s tax plan, which recently passed in both the House of Representatives and the Senate, is an attempt to encourage investment and spur job growth.
On Nov. 17, the U.S. House of Representatives voted to overhaul the U.S. tax code. The vote – which largely went along party lines – has a number of far-reaching consequences, notably for graduate students.
The average British family paid about £25,000 in taxes in 2016 – up from £15,000 in 2015. Over a lifetime, that works out to be roughly £823,439 per household.