Jamie, are you a University student?

No I am not. I graduated from University way back in 2003. Why do you ask, Sargmacher?

Ah ok. Just that in the UK F2F thread you said you lived in Durham - so I hazarded a guess, based purely on generalizations of Durham being a rather quiet semi-rural town mostly known for its Cathedral and University, that you might either be a student or someone related to the University/cultural-academic side of life there.

In fact I work for Durham County Council. What does my occupation have to do with this thread? Or were you just making conversation? :p

Ha, well, it may have something to do with this thread but that was not what I was implying and not a connection that I am interested in ;)

I wasn't 'just' making conversation, I was genuinely interested. :)

Ok, well now you know. What do *you* do for a living?

Everone else: Please look at the link in the OP and, if you live in or near London, please consider attending. The way in which the Treasury and senior officials at HM Revenue & Customs have allowed their big business friends to evade BILLIONS of pounds in unpaid taxes is nothing short of a scandal and they must be held to account. The government is telling us that harsh cuts are unavoidable, and at the same time they are letting their friends avoid paying £Billions in taxes they legally owe.

I'm a full-time Masters student at Manchester University, whilst also juggling a full-time job.

Just bumping this to bring the protest tomorrow to the attention of anyone in the London area who may want to attend. I would certainly encourage you to!

This isn't tax avoidance (legal) or even tax evasion (illegal), this is corruption (illegal and much more destructive) so I hope many people attend the protest.

One of the big telecoms companies (I can't remember its name) is "owned" by a company of a very similar name in Luxembourg. Last year the UK company took just over £7 billion in revenue from its UK customers and its running costs were £6 billion, so it's profit (which it should have paid tax on) was just over £1 billion. However, the parent company had "lent" the UK company £6 billion to cover running costs on the understanding that it would repay £7 billion at the end of the year. So the UK company had this big loan+interest to repay - as an operating cost. Once it had done that, its profits were very small, so its taxes were even smaller. Meanwhile the parent company had huge profits, but being based in Luxembourg it too only paid a small amount in tax.

We need the law to be changed to prevent that sort of behaviour.

The UK company you're talking about is Vodafone, SpeakerToAliens. And yes, Dave Hartnett, the chief exec of HM Revenue & Customs, basically signed off a deal which let them off paying the better part of £6 billion - even though HMRC's own lawyers assured him that there was a very good chance of recovering all this money if they took Vodafone to court.

Corruption is right, ulytau.