British PM takes aim at corporate tax avoiders
Prime Minister David Cameron on Thursday criticised multinational corporations that avoid paying their fair share of tax, promising action against such aggressive strategies after a public backlash in Britain.
The issue of tax avoidance by big business has turned toxic in recent years as millions of Britons struggle with low pay rises and austerity measures introduced to reduce the budget deficit.
Firms that are viewed as paying too little tax, such as coffee chain Starbucks, have been targeted by demonstrators and boycotts.
"I am a low-tax Conservative but I'm not a companies-should-pay-no-tax Conservative," Cameron told business leaders at the World Economic Forum in Davos.
"Individuals and businesses must pay their fair share," he said, adding that he would use his presidency of the Group of Eight industrialised nations to press the point.
Cameron did not mention any companies by name. At the height of the uproar last year, British lawmakers singled out Google , Amazon and Starbucks as companies that pay very little tax in Britain on profit from sales there.
The firms say they comply with British tax law, but under a tide of public outrage and demonstrations at its stores, Starbucks last year said it would pay around 20 million pounds ($32 million) in corporation tax in Britain over the next two years.
"Any businesses who think that they can carry on dodging that fair share ... need to wake up and smell the coffee," Cameron said, adding that he was not anti-business but wanted to keep tax rates low for everyone else.
Cameron's Conservative party
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