ALLIANCE BOOTS AND TAX REFORM

That this House regrets that corporate tax avoidance costs the UK Exchequer billions annually, and that several international companies have been largely responsible; is dismayed to learn from the report Alliance Boots and the Need for Corporate Tax Reform, published by Unite/War On Want/Change to Win, that Alliance Boots, an ostensibly British company, has lawfully avoided more than £1 billion in corporate taxes since 2007 when it entered private ownership in the largest leveraged buyout in UK corporate history, following which the company reincorporated in the tax haven of Zug, Switzerland, where it earns no revenue, and is controlled by entities in Luxembourg, Gibraltar and the Cayman Islands; is concerned that it avoided taxes by loading most of the £9 billion buyout debt onto the highly profitable UK business, thus shifting profits abroad; notes that Alliance Boots significantly lowered its UK tax bill while deriving an estimated 40 per cent of its revenue from UK taxpayers, primarily via NHS prescriptions; further notes that Alliance Boots is seeking to increase its taxpayer-financed profits on the back of NHS privatisation; and calls on Alliance Boots to fully disclose its profits and taxes for all countries where it has significant revenue, on HM Revenue and Customs to comprehensively investigate Alliance Boots' tax practices, and on the Government to modernise the taxation of private-equity and heavily debt-financed businesses, and to require companies to disclose significant revenues that are derived from public sector contracts, and to reform the financial and taxation regulations in British Overseas Territories.