Leading European banks are booking around 20bn (17bn) a year – equivalent to 14% of their total profits – in tax havens, with Barclays, HSBC and NatWest Group among those enjoying the lowest tax rates, according to a new report.
The figures emerge from an analysis, conducted by the EU Tax Observatory, of 36 big banks required to publicly report country-by-country data on their activities.
Banks said to enjoy a particularly low effective tax rate on their profits, of less than 15%, include Barclays, HSBC and NatWest – which changed its name from Royal Bank of Scotland last year. The effective tax rate is calculated as the ratio between aggregated tax paid and profit posted, across all jurisdictions.
A spokesperson for HSBC said the bank did “not employ tax avoidance strategies, including those designed to artificially divert profits to low-tax jurisdictions”.
A spokesperson for Barclays said the bank was the fifth-largest UK taxpayer and paid taxes across the jurisdictions in which it operated.
NatWest did not respond to a request for comment.
The claims will nevertheless further fuel those arguing that leading countries must be more ambitious in cracking down on aggressive tax avoidance and profit shifting to low-tax jurisdictions by multinationals.
The use of tax havens by banks is seen by many activists as particularly egregious since more than 1.5tn in taxpayer money was used to rescue ailing banks in Europe after the 2008 financial crisis.
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Read Full Story: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/sep/06/european-banks-storing-20bn-a-year-in-tax-havens
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