[OccupySheffield] The Great Olympic tax swindle

[David Kirkham]

The Great Olympic tax swindle 	Are you getting excited now that the London Olympics are just weeks away?

It's brilliant that we've the world's biggest sporting event being staged in the East End, but for those battling job losses and eye-watering cuts to public services, the sheer cost of the Games is proving hard to balance against any potential benefit.

	What's not so brilliant is that according to a new report published by Ethical Consumer, the majority of the giant multi-nationals sponsoring the Games are set to avoid paying millions of pounds in tax.

	Unbelievably, thanks to new HMRC rules which were quietly ushered in as part of Team GB's winning bid, the Olympic site in East London has now become the world's latest – albeit temporary - tax haven. (1)

	What this means is that 'partner organisations' such as McDonald's and Visa have a temporary exemption from both UK Corporation Tax and UK Income Tax.

	Both companies look set to make a tax-free fortune at the Games: McDonald's which will be operating its biggest ever store close to the Olympic park has a near monopoly on food outlets whilst as official payment services provider, Visa has a total monopoly on all ticketing payments.(2)

	The HMRC ruling also exempts the thousands of foreign nationals working on the Games here in the UK from paying income tax and includes everyone from journalists and judges to the athletes themselves.

	So how much tax revenue is likely to be lost this summer? The Ethical Consumer report claims that around £600m in tax will not be paid on a predicted £2.7bn in revenues due to these temporary exemptions for Olympics-related corporate partners and service providers, money that the country can't afford to lose. (3)

	Tax campaigner Richard Murphy from the Tax Justice Network is unimpressed:

	"It is bound to cost the UK tens of millions of pounds to give tax concessions to all the large companies who are operating at the Olympic site. We're giving money away that we need to solve our debt crisis and to preserve essential public services. It's a scandal that at the same time that David Cameron is criticising Jimmy Carr for using a tax haven, one has been created right in the heart of London.” Read more at: 

http://falseeconomy.org.uk/blog/the-great-olympic-tax-swindle 
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