Banking: UK Gov delighted 15 banks sign up to tax agreement
The UK's Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne said yesterday: "A year ago, the previous Government announced that it would require banks to sign up to the Code of Practice on Taxation. At the start of October this year only four out of the top fifteen had done so. I said that this was unacceptable and I gave them a deadline of end of November 2010 to sign up."
The code of practice requires that:
* banks should have strong governance around tax, which is integrated into their business decision making
* they should follow the spirit of the law in addition to the letter - this means banks can undertake tax planning to support their business operations, but this should not be used to achieve tax results that are contrary to the intentions of Parliament
* HMRC and the banks should work together to encourage mutually open and transparent relationships
"The deadline arrived today and I am pleased to say that all fifteen banks have signed up. Alongside the bank levy, this shows that the Coalition Government is taking action to ensure banks pay their fair share - unlike the previous Government, which talked tough, but failed to deliver," said Osborne.
The 15 banks that have adopted the code are:
* BANK OF AMERICA/MERRILL
* BARCLAYS
* CITIGROUP (CITIBANK)
* CREDIT SUISSE
* DEUTSCHE BANK
* GOLDMAN SACHS
* HSBC
* JP MORGAN CHASE
* LLOYDS BANKING GROUP
* MORGAN STANLEY
* NATIONWIDE BUILDING SOCIETY
* ROYAL BANK OF SCOTLAND
* SANTANDER
* STANDARD CHARTERED
* UBS
There's a notable cross-membership with The Wolfsberg Group which was created by the private banking arms of a number of banks. The group agreed a code of practice to put in place measures to detect and deter money laundering in their private banking operations. However, World Money Laundering Report (our sister publication) criticised the initiative saying that, broadly, it added nothing to the laws that applied to the Group. Since then, several members have had significant difficulty in their private banking operations.
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