Join us at Topshop and make Philip Green pay (PROTEST at BIG BUSINESS Tax Avoidance)

Join us at Topshop and make Philip Green pay (PROTEST at BIG BUSINESS Tax Avoidance)

www.guardian.co.uk

Tomorrow, on high streets across the country, (United Kingdom) there are likely to be sit-ins in Topshop, blockades of BHS, flash mobs in Dorothy Perkins, and occupations of Miss Selfridge. Why? Because Sir Philip Green, owner of the Arcadia Group of retailers, ninth richest man in Britain and a government adviser, is a tax avoider.

(visit the link for the full news article)


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This has to be the best news ever. The citizens of the UK are targeting big business that is avoiding tax.

The UK is having to tighten it's belt by £81 billion and the businesses are getting away with £100 billion of tax.

This had gone viral on Twitter.

This needs to happen elsewhere as well. Not just in the UK but all over Europe and even all over the world.

While Green lives and works in the UK, the Arcadia Group is registered in the name of his wife, Tina, who is resident in Monaco and so enjoys a 0% income-tax rate. In 2005 this arrangement allowed the Greens to bank £1.2bn, the biggest paycheck in British corporate history, without paying a penny in tax.

www.guardian.co.uk
(visit the link for the full news article)

With London crowded with Christmas shoppers, the protest caused huge disruption on Oxford Street, with BHS, Dorothy Perkins and Miss Selfridge - all owned by Sir Philip's Arcadia group - closed to customers.

The group walked back from a closed Miss Selfridge to BHS, also owned by Sir Philip, shouting: 'Philip Green, pay your tax, it's our money and we want it back' and 'We are the tax enforcement society'.

Once outside the store, they shouted: 'If you want to sell your products, pay your tax' and 'Nick Clegg, shame on you, shame on you for turning blue'. The shop was also closed to customers.

Causing traffic to stop, they moved on to Dorothy Perkins, also part of Arcadia, but the shutters of the store were down.

Read more: Mayhem-Topshops-flagship-London-store-closes

Looks as if it went well then!!

Must have cost them thousands in lost revenue.

reply to post by PuterMan


it's a good start, fingers crossed not too late.

this is the sort of action we need to be taking against banks and stock exchanges!!

hit them where it hurts!!

ps, don't forget about vodafone and 6 billion un-paid tax!- www.youtube.com...

reply to post by WHOS READY


Thanks for putting in the Vodafone link. Yes we need more and more of this. Let those bastards know that the people mean business.

These shops should be targeted anyway for other reasons, but no one can cry foul for this particular reason.

Wow, this is the first I've heard about anything on this subject, including the tax dodging. I cannot understand the levels of greed and selfishness some people display- why does he need that much money? It's absolutely disgusting that he unnecessarily puts his needs before those of others. Good on those protestors! However, the financial damage done will be basically nothing to him or his associates. Even if in the future they did make major dents into the finances of the company, it would only be the common people that would lose out, as they would be the ones who would lose their jobs. It's a lose-lose situation- the fat cat executives have already made easily enough to be sorted for life, liquidate a few of their personal assets at worst and they're sorted. Kind of links back to my earlier rhetorical question. Sometimes I question humanity.

reply to post by ScepticalBeliever


Well I do see your point about the potential for disaster for the employees, but why does the government let these people get away with this?

If I 'avoided' tax they would find a way of getting it off me. There should be a rule that people who live outside the UK should be treated for tax as if they live in the UK. Where this would cause double taxation there are already arrangements in place between EU countries but officially Monaco is not actually a member of the EU.

There are a number of microstates in Europe; due to their size, they are often closely linked with another larger state. Currently, the European microstates have special relations with the European Union.

They remain outside the Union, some due to the cost of membership, the EU not being designed with microstates in mind. Two other smaller countries in Europe, Luxembourg and Malta, are full members of the Union

Source: Wikipedia

The whole sad part is that these tax avoiders probably pay lawyers ten times what they would have paid in taxes. I say go getm.

reply to post by PuterMan


Oh, don't get me wrong, I wasn't trying to say the protests were wrong. The government should be tougher, you're right. The problem is though, if they were, these companies would re-locate. This is one of the reasons that was stated as to why the government weren't very harsh on the banks with the recent fiasco. I'm not going to claim to be an expert on legislation, business, or indeed legislation specifically for businesses, so I don't know the difficulties or costs involved in doing so. However, I do know it is a viable solution for the companies.
Here is an article about a firm considering doing this very thing, purely to avoid tax:

news.bbc.co.uk...

You're right about if we common people did it, however, he is no common man:

www.guardian.co.uk...

He is the Tory's tax advisor, obviously he's given some pretty large donations to the party, he's bought his "get out of jail free card"! That just shows how corrupt and hypocritical this system is. The article gives a figure of £300m for tax avoided last year.