The law treats business differently, depending on their size and location. Our standards reflect this.
We have developed three standards (with associated guidance notes) to ascertain and encourage responsible tax conduct:
To obtain the Fair Tax Mark, businesses are assessed against the criteria set out in the appropriate accreditation standard.
There are many reasons to secure the Fair Tax Mark, from standing out in your sector and increasing customer confidence, to reassuring investors and boosting your brand via enhanced CSR and ESG credentials.
Our standards are based on the following principles.
A business should:
Put simply, to secure a Fair Tax Mark, a business should demonstrate a substantive commitment to responsible tax conduct, financial transparency, public Country-by-Country Reporting (if a multinational) and beneficial ownership disclosure. There must be a binding tax policy that explicitly shuns tax avoidance and the artificial use of tax havens, and no recent evidence of contradicting activities. All subsidiaries and related party transactions should be fully disclosed.
The scoring system underpinning the Fair Tax Mark accreditation standards is predominantly driven by the belief that ‘transparency’ encourages, and helps business demonstrate, responsible tax conduct. It also considers the tax contribution made by a business over a number of years. There are many good reasons why a business may not be paying high tax rates over a given period. For example, it may be loss-making in some years, or claiming legitimate tax reliefs within both the spirit and letter of the law. Such businesses can still secure a Fair Tax Mark by providing additional disclosures – especially in connection with shortfalls from the applicable headline rates of tax in operation.
No matter where in the world your multinational enterprise is based, our Global Multinational Business Standard allows us to accredit you with the Fair Tax Mark. The criteria against which we assess global multinationals focuses on five key areas: beneficial ownership, governance, tax policy, financial and tax reporting, and cash taxes paid.
The Fair Tax Mark Global Multinational Business Standard satisfies the key reporting recommendations of GRI 207, the Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI) and the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises on Responsible Business Conduct, but carries with it the additional weight of independent third party verification undertaken by a trusted social enterprise.
Accreditation will also go a long way to demonstrate alignment to the EU’s Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive and associated Minimum Safeguards, which flag ‘taxation’ as a material consideration.
We have two standards for UK-only businesses:
The Fair Tax Mark standards and criteria have been developed with input from a broad range of stakeholders, including businesses, civil society organisations, tax experts and more.
A Technical Advisory Group, drawn from a range of backgrounds and perspectives, communicates throughout the year and meets on an ad hoc basis.
A public consultation process underpinned the development of our Global Multinational Business Standard.
While our standards and criteria detail the scoring system we use to assess and accredit a business, we also provide a range of templates, papers and good practice examples. These include:
As a not-for-profit social enterprise, we need to charge a fee for our assessment and accreditation services. This allows us to cover our costs and grow the Fair Tax Mark.
Our fees have been benchmarked against comparable ethical accreditation schemes.
Fees for Global Multinational Businesses | Fees for UK-only Businesses
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Fair Tax Leaders features senior professionals from across the Fair Tax Mark accredited business community. Here, Coventry Building Society Senior Manager Finance Ops and Controls Claire Newton discusses the evolving role of the tax function and the benefits of increased reporting requirements. Coventry Building Society are the UK’s second largest building society and were first accredited in 2022. They were founded …
The Tax Responsibility and Transparency Index has a brand-new website, allowing multinational companies even better access to this pioneering benchmarking tool. The Index, which was announced at the European Parliament in April 2024, enables businesses to benchmark themselves against high-bar, civil society frameworks, pending legislation and pioneering companies broken down by country or sector. This leadership pool is anonymised but participating …
