The Fair Tax Foundation are a not-for-profit social enterprise. We were developed by a team of tax justice, corporate responsibility and ethical consumer experts and launched in 2014.
We believe businesses demonstrating responsible tax practices should be recognised and celebrated, and any global race to the bottom on corporate income tax resisted.
We have developed the Fair Tax Mark, the world’s first certification for responsible tax conduct, which is now widely regarded as being the gold standard for business worldwide. In the same way that the Organic, Fairtrade and Living Wage labels allow business to differentiate their products and operations, the Fair Tax Mark label provides progressive companies of all sizes with a tool to demonstrate responsible tax conduct to their customers and wider stakeholders.
Originally, we had a UK focus. This changed in 2021, when we internationalised our activities with the launch of our Global Multinational Business Standard. We now have Fair Tax Mark certified businesses headquartered in eight countries. However, the UK is still a major focus of our activities, not least as the UK sits at the centre of an international web of tax avoidance facilitators via its crown dependencies (e.g. Jersey) and overseas territories (e.g. British Virgin Islands).
In 2024, we launched the Tax Responsibility and Transparency Index to enable large companies to benchmark themselves against high-bar civil society frameworks, pending legislation and corporate pioneers in five key areas of tax conduct.
Across the globe, 36% of multinational profits (US$1trn) are artificially shifted to tax havens each year, leading to a US$226bn reduction in corporate income tax revenue.
But when companies avoid tax, everybody loses.
Tax contributions are the lifeblood of a flourishing society, funding essential services such as healthcare, education, policing and transport. Corporate tax avoidance doesn’t just rob public services of vital revenue, it also undermines the ability of business to compete fairly, reduces national productivity, exacerbates inequality and is subverting the transition to net zero.
The more businesses that stand up for responsible tax conduct, the more likely legislators are to create better laws, and the more likely regulators are to implement those laws robustly.
The focus of our work is corporate income tax. Businesses are subjected to many different types of tax, but corporate tax has an importance way beyond the revenues it raises. Learn more about Why we focus on Corporate Income Tax.
In order to deliver our mission, we:
The Fair Tax Foundation is the trading name of Fair Tax Foundation Limited, a not-for-profit social enterprise. We are registered with the Financial Conduct Authority, registration number 32308R, as a Community Benefit Society. Our rules incorporate a statutory “asset lock” to ensure that any retained surpluses are devoted to our stated mission. Filings and annual reports are freely available on the UK’s Mutuals Public Register and most recently below.
– Annual Report and Accounts, 2023
– Annual Report and Accounts, 2022
– Annual Report and Accounts, 2021
Over our first decade, we achieved steady income growth and generated a small surplus. The majority of the Fair Tax Foundation’s income is derived from trading activity via the assessment and licensing of business to our Fair Tax Mark accreditation standards; however, grant funding has also made a significant contribution to our growth and impact. Grant funding is essential to enable us to undertake non-commercial work programmes, such as educational, public policy and advocacy activities.
In particular, we are deeply appreciative of the crucial support we have received from the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust, the Joffe Charitable Trust, Friends Provident Foundation, Funding for Social Change, the Barrow Cadbury Trust, Luminate, Trust for London and Paracletos. We provide an annual grants update on our grant funding, and what it is spent on, in parallel to the release of our annual Financial Statements.
A copy of our Articles of Association is freely available. You can learn more about our staff and board, and the Technical Advisory Group that helps to develop our assessment criteria at Meet the team.
Some 50 people and organisations invested c.£80k seed funding to enable our formation. A further 100 members newly invested c.£500k in community shares end 2024, including Barrow Cadbury Trust, Joseph Rowntree Foundation and Friends Provident Foundation, to enable us to support our ambitious expansion plans.
We are not currently accepting new investors. If you’d like to be made aware of future investment opportunities, please join our mailing list.
Ethical mortgage adviser WR Ethical have achieved their first Fair Tax Mark. The UK-based business helps customers find the best deals, informing them about the ethical and environmental performance of lenders. They are a whole-of-market mortgage broker committed to making the right choices with every aspect of how the business is run. The Fair Tax Mark is a label indicating …
Six of the world’s largest technology companies have paid rates of corporate income tax well below headline tax rates around the world, a new report from the Fair Tax Foundation has found. The report, The Silicon Six and their enduring global tax gap, examines the tax conduct of the Silicon Six (Alphabet/Google, Amazon, Apple, Meta/Facebook, Microsoft and Netflix) over the …
Nordic energy company Fortum have decided to publish their score in the Tax Responsibility and Transparency Index, revealing a high ranking and score of 74/100. The Tax Responsibility and Transparency Index is a benchmarking tool for multinational companies developed by the Fair Tax Foundation and CSR Europe. It assesses businesses in five key areas of tax conduct and is a …
