I organised a law reform event with the help of Bill Dodwell: ‘Digital multinational enterprises – can tax law take the pace?’ (11 November) for a discussion by a panel comprising Mike Williams (HM Treasury) Edward Troup (HMRC) Malcolm Gammie QC CBE Philip Baker QC and Jonathan Peacock QC and chaired by Steve Edge (Slaughter & May) of the issues surrounding making change for the better in the way in which digital MNEs are taxed in the UK.
The first question was ‘what is the political goal for change?’ Steve forced some discussion of this: ‘It’s always nice to tax people who are not in the UK but why should we Mike?’ The simple answer was: ‘It’s a price for access to the UK market.’ Double non-taxation is perceived to be unfair where money is taken from customers in the UK. Malcolm pointed...
