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An end to tax tourism by multinational corporations?

News that seven US technology companies, including Google, Amazon and eBay, paid only £54m of UK corporation tax in 2012 has elicited hard-felt but predictable responses.

Prime Minister David Cameron has repeated his promise to make sure that multinational companies pay more UK tax in respect of their UK activities, while Margaret Hodge, Chair of the parliamentary Public Accounts Committee, has blamed the Government for overseeing a ‘tax bonanza’ for these companies.

Domestic sentiment which leads to unilateral action is not, however, the way to tackle the problem.

The answer lies with the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) which is working hard to produce a solution to what might be described as a form of “tax tourism” by multinational corporations. We have covered this in earlier editions of Weekly Tax Brief.

With the story likely to remain of interest throughout 2014, we thought it would be helpful to set out here the key OECD dates for action:

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by George Bull .