UK cities, towns and districts standing up for responsible tax conduct
Councillors across the UK work hard to serve their local communities and help direct the delivery of essential public services. By signing up to the Councils for Fair Tax Declaration, councils can demonstrate alignment to their values and encourage responsible tax practice through:
- leading by example on their own tax conduct
- demanding to know who owns and profits from businesses the council buys from – UK and overseas – and their full financial reports
- joining calls for UK public procurement rules to change so that councils can do more to tackle tax avoidance and award points to suppliers that demonstrate responsible tax conduct.
Research commissioned by the Fair Tax Foundation from DatLab has revealed that between 2014-19, a huge 17.5% of UK public procurement contracts – with a combined value of £37.5bn – were won by businesses with connections to a tax haven. Recent research has found that the UK loses an estimated £17bn in corporation tax revenues as a result of profit shifting alone.
Significantly, recent polling has found that two thirds of people (66%) believe the Government and local councils should at least consider a company’s ethics and how they pay their tax, as well as value for money and quality of service provided, when awarding contracts to companies.
For years, we have called on the UK Government to give greater powers to local councils and other public bodies so they can better address bad tax conduct and reward good tax conduct through procurement. Read about the measures we want to see introduced.