That is a moot point. Yes perhaps they should have done more, but talking about what a previous labour government (who were just as neoliberal as any Tory Government)doesn't actually tackle the issue. it is up to George and co to sort it out..

Only employer's NIC is an actual cost on the company though, PAYE and employee's NIC is an income tax.

Employees don't have the same scope to creatively structure their affairs in order to reduce their liability. And the 3% reported is on their profits after they've taken a corporate tax deduction for all salary costs, not just on their revenue.

The public, quite rightly, just want it to be a level playing field. It's not the company's fault for using the laws to their advantage, it's the laws itself.

I think people need to see the bigger picture and look at how many people Google employ and how much tax is raised via PAYE/NI as well as them settling their Tax.
They are also a very good employer offering extremely good wages and conditions, their offices at Victoria are amazing.
But then again maybe we should just drive them away and let them set up somewhere else and employ people in another country.

Lots of Global employers have major hubs in the UK - not only are they good employers, they provide that same PAYE / NI benefit into the coffers via their workforce - They also pay their requisite amount of tax.

If by asking them not to take the piss with their tax affairs people think they will walk away then think again - they wont do it in a million years.

HSBC have moved a huge amount of their workforce to Hong Kong so I am not sure its right to be complacent.

I have worked for a few small to medium sized companies over the years and arranged 'deals' over VAT and Tax, whether this is correct or not those deals kept companies afloat and people in jobs and put money into the Government coffers that they might not have got if they had been hard nosed.

I am sure there were a lot of things taken into consideration including the historical nature of the debt, is it right? not strictly but anyone involved in business or finance knows sometimes you have to negotiate to get deals done and move on.

From the company's point of view, this would make it easier. They would know exactly what they have to pay in tax. In addition if a global company wanted to expand into a country, it could do that without increasing it's tax burden, making it attractive to expand and employ people globally.

It would incentivise nations to attract global companies so they could get a share of that global pot. Which in the case of some global companies is billions. Some countries have corporate tax rates so low that the only benefit they get is the handful of people they employ in that country. With my system a each nation would get some revenue from this world company as well as the employment.

National corporate tax rate setting has been a way of attracting companies but it doesn't work. You set a rate and then another country offers a lower rate which is what the problem is in the first place, some countries set a rate so low to get the employment and these companies end up hardly paying anything to anyone, because each nation is competing with is neighbour.

In regards the share of the pot for each country, the problem that is created by each country trying to work out how much tax to charge has lead to the the situation we face now, with companies able to move or hide revenue by claming that they don't do much business in the host country.

Say, as you point out a company does 50% in one country and 10% in the others, the country where the 50% is done will get other benefits, more business in the 50% country, will relate to more employment in that country, with the company not having to worry about how much tax it will pay in one country as opposed to another. This will save that company money as well as the country trying to collect tax.

The share of the pot element could maybe be tweeked in some way if it turms out truly unfair but my suggestion aims to simplify the system for both host nations and companies alike. Encourage expansion and growth by making it easier for companies to set up in many different countries and also it would focus countries wanting corporate investment to use other ways, such as infrastructure improvement, skilled work force, pay rates etc to attract investment.

I'm not a tax expert, this is just an idea. It may have some flaws, I don't know but I think the principle is a good one. We need to treat global companies as just that, global. Imagine you have 50 Corporates all doing business in a particular country. That would add up to some serious tax income for that country. Right now, no one really gets anything at all and we all lose out.

Forcing companpies to pay, 15% here and 2% there and so on ends up with no one getting anything. IT has taken 10 years for our government to get just 130 million out of Google and at what cost to HMRC. What a joke.